A folk record in terms of its melancholic instrumentation (and of course, the title), but there’s something resiliently independent across the 13-track opener from Mr Rachel’s debut.
Opener, ‘Letter To A Soldier’, a veritable feast of slide guitar and mandolin, sets the pace well. At moments sad, yet always simple in the construction, it shows that there’s more on offer here than just the run of the mill drinking songs and twiddling arpeggios.
Elsewhere, there’s the coyly titled ‘The Sound Of The Silence’, which sounds like Badly Drawn Boy, and on numerous tracks, a vocal that owes a debt to Brett Anderson. Rachel rocks too, most notably on ‘Free My Mind’, which is where the albums production is at its most flawed.
With a band made up of members of Goldfrapp, Sand and The Damned, Rachel has all the right connections. But escaping the London live folk circuit may prove harder than he imagines. Time will tell.
JAKE
KENNEDY
RECORD COLLECTOR
