I am not entirely sure how long Edinburgh’s Richard Haswell has been knocking out albums or, indeed, how many musical aliases he has used in the past but it would seem that the time has come for some serious introspection with “Lamp Black” putting the organisation into melancholy.
That doesn’t make “Lamp Black a bad or depressing album but you do need to be in the mood for it. It isn’t, for example, suitable for the morning traffic lights grand prix as, if this album should catch you unawares, you might well regard collision as a constructive outcome. For that very reason, fans of folk music will undoubtedly find value in the all pervading bleakness of this album with its introspective intensity and worship of things forever lost sounding familiar notes and, of the songs contained herein, only “Haywire” actually looks for sunshine although, even then, the glory of the future seems as transient as a dream.
Maybe happy times are actually behind us and the future will be as grey and overcast as Richard Haswell portrays. Or maybe not as chicken pakora, as far as I am aware, is still legal.
Available from Bandcamp.