Album Review: Walk The River, Guillemots

Fyfe Dangerfield is no longer in love, as we found him on his previous outing Fly Yellow Moon. Instead, he is loveless, isolated, but at least he has the grand music of his bandmates to back him up. Whereas Fly Yellow Moon was Dangerfield's spontaneous collection of songs written and quickly recorded in the rapture of a short-term relationship, Walk the River (streaming in full here) is the meticulous aftermath where the band reflect in detail on inevitable lost love, crafting an album that's as cohesive as it is heartbreaking.


The album begins with the title track, as it begins 'Fell in love with a boy, grew tired of it,' as he uses the metaphor of an animal on the run to express his loneliness. 'I'm still here' Fyfe pines, yet he is haunted, feeling hunted. The ambiguity of that word startling. Similarly, on I Must Be a Lover, one of the more pop-orientated songs, ends in a chorus of 'let the memory go' and on I Don't Feel Amazing Now (the title says it all, eh?) it seems he's after meaningless sex, after the disappointment of a lost love: 'I don't wanna know your name, I don't ever wanna speak again/I just wanna be somewhere I can lose myself, is that alright?' It's a song that is full of power, it's bluntly depressing, and as filthy as you'll hear Dangerfield. Thematically then, Walk the River seems a little one note, but that all helps the album to become really coherent, certainly a record you'll turn to after a break up when you've worn out the Mac's Rumours, or Noah and the Whale's First Days of Spring.


Musically, again, it is perhaps their most unified album. They long ago ditched the rich orchestration which made me love them in the first place, they've turned from a double bass to a standard electric bass, their drumbeats seem less jazz-infused, and there's no sign of a typewriter. But if you are after a band who can create a textured, dreamy sound from standard instruments, this is a great example. It verges on shoegaze, and it all has this spaced out feel. In an interview, Dangerfield has said he had been obsessed with the idea of being in space, which is found in the music and makes a perfect analogy for the isolation Dangerfield is so clearly describing throughout the album. The guitars are sparse, and there's lots of reverb and effect, take the opening of Inside for example, you may as well be gazing at the stars whilst walking on the moon. If you can accept that they've lost the musical bombast and originality that once made them so popular, then you should be able to appreciate that they've discovered a sound that is deeply atmospheric, moody and wholly engrossing. If they've ditched the conventional orchestral strings, they've created a just as effecting and unique sound through a standard rock-band set up.


I initially had doubts about Walk the River. Red proved to be one of the most disappointing albums of the decade, and it seemed as if my first favourite band were going to fade away, embarrassingly try and sell out to the mainstream, and these thoughts weren't dispelled when I first listened to The Basket. But when listened to in the album's context, near the end, you can only then understand the complex nature of the song, the burst of joy is actually regret for a relationship past, and in this light, what was once a flimsy pop song becomes one of the most melancholy songs the band have ever produced. The fade-out of the song is spot on, it's the deterioration of those happy memories, or the promise of new romance only to be lost again, which is only made apparent by one swift production choice.


That's the beauty of the Guillemots and their music, it's so deft, so meticulous, yet so easy to listen to at the same time. This album could be dismissed as a band maybe forgetting their original roots and becoming slaves to soft-rock, rambling on about lost love. Yet they'd miss the subtlety of the songwriting, the magical, intimate atmosphere, the richly smooth, earnest vocals. It isn't a patch on Through the Windowpane, which for me is one of the most magical albums ever recorded. Walk the River doesn't have any songs you instantly fall in love with like Trains to Brazil, nothing as life-affirming as We're Here nor anything quite as majestic as Sao Paulo. Yet I have nothing but love for the Guillemots right now, a band who have recaptured glimmers of their early promise and have crafted their most consistent album yet, and one of my favourite albums of the year so far.