Can lightning strike twice, three years after Ben Howard’s debut album?
With an average song length of five and a half minutes Ben Howard is extending his musical wings with his new album. I Forgot Where We Were. This follows 2011s Every Kingdom that had a marginally shorter average song time but that importantly included Radio 1 friendly tracks Keep Your Head Up and Only Love. These two tracks introduced him to his current fan base and it seems he’s asking them to stick with him on more of the same, and then some.
Sonically Ben Howard’s follow up album sounds similar to its predecessor with melodic fingerpicking leading the rhythm and ethereal strings and drums backing it up. But Howard’s fingers are no longer heard sliding along the fretboard and his acoustic guitar sounds more like an electric at times. Overall the sound is more uniform and polished but the effect is still as haunting.
The opener Small Things returns us immediately to Howard’s slow paced intimate world and starts appropriately with the line, “All in my mind.” These songs are his personal journey and we’re all invited. The song has dark undertones in its subject matter: “has the world gone mad, or is it me? All these small things they gather round me,” but they never seem overbearing due to its sweet melody.
The second album track Rivers in the Mouth provides more pace straight off the bat but it’s the title track I Forget Where We Were that really kicks off the album. It’s not the catchy pop tune Radio 1 is after (it’s slow, broody and almost five minutes long) but it’s a catchy ballad that’s raised by Howard’s to-the-point vocals over rolling and crashing drums.
She Treats Me Well is perhaps Howard’s lightest song on the album centring around his partner being a force for good in his life but despite this subject matter the song still sounds mellow enough not to jump off the album in revolt. Howard has placed himself into a comfortable groove of song making and certainly has a distinguishable sound from his contemporaries.
End of the Affair is just shy of eight minutes long and that’s understandable when you hear it. It comes across as Howard’s brooding seminal album piece building slowly to crescendos and a fast beat towards the end. Howard seems to be an expert at these big swelling songs by now with his Burgh Island EP (recorded between both LPs) containing the title track Burgh Island, a similarly impressive track that builds to a catchy, atmospheric point before it relentlessly keeps on giving.
Overall I Forget Where We Were isn’t instantly catchy but that could be its greatest selling point. It’ll take a few listens to appreciate these tunes and once you do there’s so much depth to them that you could be discovering nuances for weeks. Howard is a growing talent and with a musical prowess like this it’ll be interesting to see how he progresses from here.
Author – Matt, Cardiff store
