Now based back in the UK after a couple of years in LA, returning home for IVF treatment after he and his wife’s struggles to start a family, the self-produced album very much reflects both that and the experiences of lockdown just after they’d relocated, the title capturing the rollercoaster of hope and defeat.
Musically, it’s a mellower more soft rock affair than his previous work, opening, his voice at the falsetto end of his range, with the fingerpicked ripples of ‘Still Young’ with its theme of ambivalence and uncertainty:
Maybe there’s a part of me That wants to rule the world
But it’s scared of getting cold I’m still young but I have seen
I’m not as old today as I’ve been It’s a curse to feel unhappy
Is it worse to be afraid?
where:
Things that I know I don’t know Keep me from doing the right thing
The tempo shifts for the percussive shuffling ‘Hold The Lightning’ with its descending keyboard scales and a delivery and melody that puts you in mind of the reflective side of Paul mid-period Simon but with two brief stripped back touches of 60s psychedelia treated vocals, again musing on a similar questioning theme:
If I had everything I want in life
Would it only leave me empty?
but of a more optimistic bent in its chorus:
Hold the light Hold the lightning
When the load Wears you down
Let the light Keep you hiding
May the road Turn you round
Scuffed drums and his soft, falsetto vocals carry ‘Firefight’ which, melodically, has a John Barry feel, one again mingling ennui, resignation and feeling helpless, the verses drawn from conversation with fellow artists who always talked themselves down:
Like a rose bud I could have been someone
She spoke so plainly Like it’s all been said and done
I stirred my coffee And stared off into space
It’s hard to know exactly what the right thing is to say
…there’s a rope around your neck That only you can see
But here offset by a sense of urgency to escape the temptation to just give in:
Time bleeds out Gotta find a quick solution
To get up off the ground Dreams unbound
Will we ever stop believing We’ll never make it out
I don’t feel old enough To feel too young for giving up
Oh I used to be a diver Now I’m scared to be a few miles from the sun
There’s melodic traces of The Velvet Underground to the slow walking rhythms of ‘You & Me’ with its bittersweet theme of transience, growing older and the balancing scales of the negatives and positives of life:
I felt an earthquake Left a scar that won’t fade
It’s more beautiful than heartbreak I’ll meet you there
Where the water’s rising high Just enough to keep us safe and dry
All the way back when we both believed There is a blue lake
Deep below our mistakes We can swim and watch the clouds play
I’ll meet you there
He’s called ‘In Your Eyes’ a sad ABBA song, though the reality is more rooted in Sgt Pepper-era Beatles melancholia, or maybe a slowed down Steely Dan mood, again mining self-disappointment as:
The years start deceiving It’s hard to believe in
A long summer’s evening Just lying in Eden
..all that I see Is the man I never chose to be
and looking to recapture earlier innocence and dreams:
Turn over a leaf Maybe things will all work out
One more try Get it right
In your eyes See that small kid running
When his dreams come true Will he ever notice
Before they’re out of view?
The second half of the album doesn’t much vary the template of the first, the same concerns about being adrift and looking to find a reason to believe informing the lyrics, the music generally coloured by classic Laurel Canyon and 70s New York vibes, although ‘Little River’ does kick up the dust somewhat with its fairly urgent beat and determined drums while ‘Saint & Thief’ with is themes of growing up and looking for meaning once more nods to that late 60s Lennon-esque psychedelia miasma. Those who look for a happy ending will want to linger over ‘Cruel World’, a song born from the couple’s successful IVF:
Pacing ‘round the ward Seen this scene before
Desperate dad to be Looks a bit like me
When I finally see your face Just so much to say
Sorry son It’s a cruel, cruel world
And it isn’t spinning just for you
Everything you’re dreaming
Won’t come true…but maybe me and you together
We could find Our secret corner
And make it kinder
The album’s two strongest tracks come at the end, the first, ‘Nothing To Do In LA’, a pensive organ-backed slow sleepy sway reflecting the decision to move back home as he sings:
Did I hear your voice Echoing out?
I’m still shedding memories We made in this town
I can’t face the places Where they knew our names
Got nowhere to go now What did we do to LA?
And, finally, joined by Lisa Hannigan on harmonies, comes the five-minute, hushed sung, folk-blues fingerpicked ‘Santa Fe’ with its wash of memories and places, written when they took the decision to leave LA and the dream they’d looked to build, the track builds from its atmospheric , quiet guitar notes to a drums and keyboards crescendo and ebb:
Could we trace the path to Breakers Beach?
What we leave behind could never reach Back where the rocks and waters meet
Take me anywhere but here Can we go back to Yosemite?
With the tallest gods you’ll ever meet I wanna feel again, so small and weak
In the river bank with you Or we could take a walk down Finley Avenue
But way before the world began, unfairly crushing you
We’d imagine open worlds and open hearts Imagine anything but here
A memory of a moment come undone A whisper of a dream I fear is gone
At times almost oppressive in its pervasive air of disappointment, but ultimately that winter giving way to the new buds of a spring, it’s a definite shift of style and sound, but one that seems likely to engage with a much wider audience.