Previously featured on KLOF Mag, Ma Polaine’s Great Decline are a Somerset-based duo comprising songwriter-vocalist Beth Packer and guitarist Clinton Hough. I must confess that I’ve been somewhat indifferent to their previous releases. However, Molecules, their fourth full-length release, seems to have been sprinkled with fairy dust, and while still mingling their jazz, blues, Americana, and folk influences, it glows with something special. Joined by Nicki Pini and Jimmy Norden as the rhythm section and recorded live, it came together in the silence and solitude of lockdown, imbuing the material with a contemplative sense of calm even in its more seething lyrical moments that are reflected in both the words and music as well as Packer’s impressive light and relaxed vocals.
It opens with Jars, a love filtered through the metaphor of the title, the bottling of a gamut of emotions and feelings that it entails that’s more than what’s written on the label (“There’s more to love than what they’d have you know/And it’s not something simplistically filed in the supermarket aisle/It’s crowded and ugly sometimes“). It’s about more than those first flushes (“romance is dead/Well we never really had that anyway/We don’t need flowers or anniversaries to show the love we have/It’s bigger than that”). There’s a lovely line about being a touch prickly as she sings “I’m the pufferfish/And I don’t intend to age too gracefully”, with the song rounding off with all those jars of life together that hold “The fire, the light, the bored, the complacent, the ignored…the comfortable, the warm, the wild passionate storms… the uninspired holes, the adored” and, above all, “the safest arms I’ll ever know”.
Lightly strummed with a jazzy flow before the drums kick in, River deals with the problems of communicating what you want to say in a relationship (“it ain’t easy/Trying to say a thing that has no end/That goes for miles and bends/Dark and turning!”) when the waters get turbulent (“I know you’re finding it hard to see past/All the demons that follow you into the night… Lay me down in the river and/Wake me up when it’s over/I guess we’ve got tomorrow to wake up to today… Are you gonna leave the world burning/Twisted and churning when you leave?”).
That air of loss and wistful regret when the flame flickers and dies also pervades the slow walking Back When You Loved Me, Packer’s voice finds its finest mingling of sadness and warm memories (“When the sky was black/The air was crisp/Tears held back/That’s when you loved me”) behind which Hough’s guitar provides the reverb pulse as she sings “we both know that there’s/Not much time to say goodbye/So hold me by your side…I’ll be in the bar on a Tuesday morning/Drink till the last breath draws me down/Underneath the cover and your love light throws me/Mind in the fire, and your love won’t go away”. It also has the catchiest chorus on the album.
Alone kicks the tempo up with Packer adding harmonica to the country groove. The song illustrates that feeling of being isolated even when you’re “standing in a room full of people all/Singing along, along, along/Telling me I should know this song/When all I wanted was a little peace in my mind/And silence from the chaos for a while” or how “Sometimes I just want to hide away from the ones/Who love me the most”. She has a nice line in imagery too, deftly evidenced in “And if your garden is full/Maybe you still feel like it’s all for nothing, no one, nothing/And nobody’s going to see those stupid fucking geraniums”.
In a world filled with songs sulking over broken relationships, the sparse Say Goodbye with its Velvets bassline undercurrent comes as a breath of fresh air since the narrator can’t wait to get shot of her unwanted lover (“Why don’t you say goodbye?/Instead of eking it out one last time… Why don’t you walk away?/You could even pretend/It was my fault in the end… You could walk away/Let the memory fade/Fight it away from my memory/’Cause I’m gonna build a brand new me/I don’t need your pity”), Packer’s voice soaring and tumbling and her slide guitar wailing as the track builds in its self-assertiveness (“I’m gonna be fine on my own, and I know I can see it through”).
Audrey comes with more blues and jazz colours as well as a walking bass line and a slinky vocal, variously deep and high, pitched to match the vibe as, again, it plays to a theme of female self-empowerment (“You don’t need no man to bring you down… Take flight, free your mind/Set the record straight/Make your body yours/And yours again”) with its “dance, Audrey dance” chorus hook. Softer but still tracing an unhappy relationship (“I saw you creeping up behind me like a grenade/Oh, shame/I saw you pick the pieces of my tirade/I walk the streets, and I find a place where we/Lay our head, where we forgive/Where we breathe a little easier”), Purple has a simple yet intricate guitar backing while again Packer shows her supple vocal range as she soars to the skies. The arrangement, with its scuffed snare and lazy blues retro shuffle, may feel laid back, but the lyrics are anything but (“it’s just a word/It’s just a moment you misspoke/That fucked up my world… but now I’m the angry one/Now I’m the bitter tongue/Now I’m the crazy one, ripping you into oblivion/ Killing you with silence till it’s done”). They keep the bluesy musical mood loose and easy for the penultimate, prowlingly sung Blame It On Me (“Every ounce of you hurts/Tears might fall with every touch/I’m all back to front and twisted, thinking of you”) that would be right at home in the wee hours of some smoky jazz cellar.
It ends with the initially pared-back title track and a dose of philosophising about our place in the grand scheme of things (“We’re just molecules and blood/An insignificant part of the/Universe/A gram of salt in the sea/A speck in infinity”) but still yet “We’re the burning cigarette in the lungs/Suffocating life, we’re killers, everyone”, the tempo and the instrumentation building as it finds hope and comfort in a “monstrous and cold” world in moments of closeness we share (“you’re all I see/And I guess that’s all I need…If we’re already out of time/Let’s make this moment last”). It is an album that’s not only a personal musical epiphany for me but one that should firmly ensure Ma Polaine’s Great Decline is most decidedly in the ascendant.
Bandcamp: https://mapolaine.bandcamp.com/album/molecules-2