Hope In High Water – Bonfire & Pine
Fish Records – 8 November 2019
A duo from, as they put it, “the flatlands of Milton Keynes”, guitarist Josh Morris and banjo/u-bass player Carly Slade follow-up their 2017 debut with an album that contrasts the former’s song about death, trauma and the breakdown of relationships, with one focused on healing, albeit not without its own share of darkness.
Augmented by Luke Yates on percussion and violin and Darren Capp on drums, it sets out its thematic stall with a bluesy, Lennon-esque opening track titled Healed as Morris sings how he’s “Starting to feel comfort in my own skin” and which is basically about rebirth through looking inward and realising both your self-worth and that you, not others, might be the root of the problems. It’s also probably also the only song you’ll hear mention psilocybin.
They trade vocal places for the folksier strum and strolling rhythms of It’s Over Now which deals with how childhood trauma, and here it seems like abuse, can continue to affect you in adulthood (“Why can’t my body know it’s over now?”), but offers the possibility of “Starting to think about trust/Starting to understand love…Starting to welcome your touch/Starting to let in your love” and some days “even feel like forgiving…‘Cos there’s still fire in these bones and love in this heart’”.
The pair then join voices, harmonising for the slow strum country waltz title track, a longing for quiet in a world of noise (“Why’s everyone talking at the same damn time?”), a stillness found in the calm of a loving relationship (“So just tell me we’ll be alright/And this is my home”).
As I said, the album isn’t without its darker moments, a case in point being the jogging rhythm fingerpicked Pray Away, a post-break-up song where Morris talks of how “All things slowly come undone/Indecision holds my wrists and demons clasp my tongue”, an observation on how the clarity and conviction that seemed so clear in youth become blurred as we grow older, “Longing for a day when loneliness/No longer bothers me”.
And then, arriving timely in the wake of the recent report on the tragedy there’s Grenfell, a heartbreaking acoustic duet that recalls hearing the story of a woman on one of the top floors was unaware of the fire until she received a phone call from a friend watching events tragedy unfold on the television. Too late for her to escape, her friend stayed on the line talking with her until the end, the songs opening out into a commentary on how, in the name of economics, some lives are more valued than others and “If you’re a woman working three jobs just to feed her kids/Then they probably won’t deem you worth protecting”.
However, as stated, and emblemised in their choice of name, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, an optimism that, be it in the form of a love, self-determination or just a helping hand in time of need shines throughout the likes of Alone (“I’m here let me in/Let your troubles meet my skin”), Here Lies (“you scooped me up, told me I was enough/Tended to all my bruises, put up with my abuses/You held my broken heart, in all its many parts”), and Pull Apart The Pieces (“as you lay broken on the bathroom floor/With nothing left to mourn…A stranger’s smile lifts you from the darkness in your mind/Reminds you that man’s kind, most of the time”).
Another number to reference the symbolic pines of the title and the serenity nature can bring, Slade on vocals, accompanying herself on banjo, the softly shuffling folksy Americana of Escaped Lions and Empty Oceans is about the importance of hope in the depths of depression and, as the song notes on the website say, learning “to navigate the inner waters of emotions and feelings or face losing touch with the depth and diversity of the emotional landscapes that make life worth living” and that “There’s no prayer quite like morning sunrise”.
The important message in many of the songs is that we need to reach inside, to recognise how we can be our own problem and find the will and strength to make the changes and lift ourselves out of whatever shadows seek to engulf us. “I’ve taken too much pride in my cynicism… Making a dark world darker/Making a hard world harder” sings Morris accompanied by Spanish guitar on the slow-paced, bluesy Taken Too Much Pride, resolving not to “stay stuck in my old ways”, while, warblingly sung by Slade, the backwoods hymnal-like swaying closer Something Unnamed speaks of being reborn (“One morning I awoke washed by the rain”) after 10 years “locked out of my very own heart” and finding faith in Something unnamed “to help carry the weight/To wipe clean the shame and guide the way”, whether that’s in some form of divinity, nature or self.
While, delivered in echoey, mixed back vocals,the song itself speaks of the harrowing abuse (“She tried to live a life both good and kind/But the beatings and the bruising found her there/Soon she began not to love/She too began not to care”) of a military wife who attempted suicide, the stark Appalachian coloured spiritual blues Stronger Than You Know carries it and the album’s message in its title as the final lines conclude “When you’ve been dealt a bad hand it’s easy to find a bad man/But you don’t always have to learn the hard way/You’re stronger than you know/When you learn how to say no”.
To mix metaphors, this is a positive reminder that, when the floodwaters are rising, sometimes setting the woods on fire will lead you to a higher ground.
Photo Credit: Imelda Michalczyk