The August Arrival – All Blue And Gold
Independent – 26 March 2021
Based in Whitehorse in the Yukon, The August Arrival comprise singer Sara MacDonald with Jordy Walker on bass, electric guitars, accordion, zither and drums, the latter also contributed by Tara Martin on four of the mini album’s six tracks. This is their second release and their first in a decade, a collection of acoustic folksy Americana that, save for the snare-driven chug of Show Yourself, a song about lack of communication in a relationship (“I’d tell you that I’m sorry/If I thought that you’d hear/I’d tell you that I’m lonely/If I thought you’d care”), takes a relaxed slow-paced approach.
The band name indicative of a change in seasons, of things starting to slowly die, it opens with the most immediate number, the achingly bittersweet gently cascading notes of Normal Person about seeking to find where you stand (“If you’re the ship I’m sailing on/Do I bail or do I berth?/If you’re the spell that’s cast upon/Am I charmed or am I cursed?”), moving on the steady strum and tapping percussion of Goodbye To The Sun that touching on British 60s pop influences and featuring a twanged guitar flourish from Walker, again speaks of a tug between permanence and change (“Knowing that we were one/I can feel you here/Hidden in this moment/As the leaves lose green”).
Micah Smith on bass, the steady walking rhythm and descending wistfully intimate vocal notes of Running follows a similar thread (“My dreams have overcome me/I can’t tell fake from reality/I’m drowning in a sea of what-ifs/I’d hate to think of the moments I’ve missed”) as she sings how “We occupy a vacancy/Like a house with lights but no one home”.
There’s a traditional folk tinge to the sparse, reflective and darker persuasions of The Ghost with would seem to be touching on possible themes of depression and trying to struggle to the surface but where “the Ghost/In the corner/It always, always waves to me/And I never know/Which version I’ll be tomorrow”.
Opening with light fingerpicked guitar joined by Darcy McCord’s soothing cello, it ends with the quietly aching The Weight of the Clock, Erica Mah and Bethan Davies’s harmonies complementing McDonald’s vocals as, again trying to keep a relationship together, she sings “I would tell a thousand lies/If it meant I could keep you” but realising it’s a losing battle (“it’s too complicated/And all the time that it would take/Would just be misdirected”), ending with the poignant line “sometimes I find/I’m measuring my worth to pass the time”. Suitably autumnal in musical textures to match the tenor of the lyrics, it may be a few months early but it marks the calendar of the heart with a quiet sense of grace in resignation.
Order via Bandcamp: https://theaugustarrival.bandcamp.com/album/all-blue-and-gold