Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence – Two People
Old Man Henry Records – Out Now
Having first met in 2013 at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, Nashville-based singer-songwriters Hecht and Spence have regularly taken time out from their solo careers to perform together. With their two singles, Two People and Parallel Lines, having received some 8 million streams on Spotify they decided maybe it was time for a full album.
An eight-track collection, they haven’t included either the original or a new recording of the title number and the other single appears as a live acoustic version, which may be a disappointment if you’ve not got either of the previous releases, but that does mean there are seven new numbers for the already established fan base.
A concept album of sorts that charts the arc of a love affair, albeit not in linear order, it opens with Hecht’s hushed, softly sandpapery tones taking lead on the gently strummed coming home love song Holding You, Spence crooning harmony on the chorus. The two guitars and voices remain the template throughout, Spence stepping up to the microphone to lend her breathy soprano warble to a live in the studio recording of All On The Table, the first song the pair write together.
A Night Together brings Hecht back into the spotlight, a year into the relationship and looking to keep the spark kindled in the face of routine, be it with a trip to the Ferris Wheel or a romantic dinner, the pair duetting on the chorus. Things clearly don’t go well as the fingerpicked and fiddle accompanied I’ll Keep You finds Spence poignantly sorting through memories of the time spent together, boxing up what she doesn’t want for a yard sale.
Cello makes a mournful appearance on the Hecht-sung Over You, which, Spence’s voice absent, comes at the break-up from the man’s perspective as he tries to figure out what went wrong and persuade himself it’s all behind him.
Again with Hecht on lead and Spence harmonising on the chorus, backed by both strummed and fingerpicked guitars, The Real Thing seems to go back to the beginning, relating how the pair met at a party (if, indeed, they’re the same couple), he persuading her to ditch the guy she’s with because he’s clearly not the one to give her the love she needs.
The last of the new numbers is Trying, Spence singing yearning lead as she tries to do her best to make things work and trust in what he’s offering, suggesting perhaps that, given the outcome, sometimes old wounds never allow new skin to grow. It ends with the rerecording of Parallel Lines, a shared verses number musing on what might have happened if different decisions had been made when their paths crossed, the different brief encounter scenario to the party in the earlier song bringing a more universal view of the fates and destinies that shape our relationships.
A love found, lived and lost in eight songs, simply but beautifully crafted in its musical and emotional notes, it’s the album equivalent of a Richard Linklater or Woody Allen bittersweet romance.