On A Golden Shore is the fifth album from The Hanging Stars, a somewhat downbeat but impressive affair with songs of death and heartbreak, described as the “darker little brother’ of the previous Hollow Heart. The songs were pretty much put together on the hoof between other gigging commitments before coming together over eight days of primarily first studio takes in Scotland before Joe Harvey-White added his pedal steel parts back in London.
Let Me Dream Of You, with its reverb twang opener sets the scene with a Stonesy swagger as Olson sings how “It’s the season of our tears” while Patrick Ralla’s guitar work pays tribute to Tom Verlaine, who died during the week the album was recorded. It fades away to be followed by Ralla’s Sweet Light, where the sunny vibe and Lou Reed undertones are offset by the regret and melancholy in the lyrics of “Broken glass/And windows smashed/A lazy lost afternoon”, the line “We were meant to see the light” carrying an ambiguous commentary.
Happiness Is A Bird, with its steel and wah-wah notes, conjures trippy CS&N thoughts mingled with Grateful Dead echoes and again casts a downbeat pall with its imagery of “Happiness is a bird/Caught inside your kitchen on a sunny day/Then you realise, you left it far too long to even try” where “Longing, is the greatest gift/Waiting, is her evil twin”.
Pedal steel also carries the dejection mood of Disbelieving (“I have a hard time believing/That we’re done/Everything’s so dull and grey, I’ll take a rain check on today”), though things take an ambivalently brighter turn on the narcotic ambience of Washing Line (“One kiss from your lips is the remedy/To ease my misery/Hang me out to dry/On your washing lalalala line”), leaking into psych weave of Golden Shore with its bongos and pan pipes courtesy Circulus’s Will Summers, the opening line of which (“Make me a pallet on your floor”) borrows from the traditional blues as Olson conjures a blissful reverie (“I saw you in my dream last night/Your heather hair a strange delight/Give me all and give me more/Over the hill on the golden shore/Keep it safe and keep it warm/In your heart just like your own”) in thoughts of returning home (“For three moments and a kiss/I would sacrifice my wish/To be close to you right now”).
Silver Rings gets funkier with jazzy keys and Latin rhythm percussion, calling to mind the psych-soul of War with its love addition metaphors (“She pierced my skin/The needle feather thin/The pain was as it should/And I was looking good/When you say goodbye/The sting will prove that you were mine”) returning to janglier climes with I Need A Good Day seeking relief from the torments (“I’ve been dreaming of a brighter day/Of a tomorrow that can heal my pain”) before rolling banjo and mandolin notes ripple through No Way Spell and its love in vain gloom (“I take a seat beside you/But you never look my way/And every time I need you/You can’t recall my name”).
Hopes of better emotional weather are equally dashed in the folksy gentle shuffling Raindrops In A Hurricane (“I’ve been dreaming of another country/A warm place where the lemons grow/And I’ve been thinking about a girl so pretty/But she don’t want my loving no more… She was gonna leave me broken hearted in a hurry anyway”), woodwind adding a pastoral tint to the Ray Davies meets Gilbert O’Sullivan rhythmic lope. It ends with a Heart In A Box, which, with an opening swell of horns and vocal croons, starts out following the paths laid down earlier (“I left my heart in a box on the last train home/And the pain that I felt inside was like the Sistine Dome/I had a dream I caused a scene upon a public bus/And I feared for what’s left of my pride you’d see my self-disgust”) but manages to rouse a parting positivity as the shutters come down, Olson singing “I guess/That I’m blessed with you/And I should stress/That I’m less/Without you”, the psychedelic call and response closing repeat of the final words feeling positively Beatlesesque.
In talking about the album and the songs, Ralla says there were moments when they thought, “Wow, what did we do there?”. It’s a sentiment listeners are sure to echo on hearing this impressive offering.