On his follow-up to 2013’s electronic gem Life After Defo, Daniel Woolhouse – aka English musician Dartford Goth – dives heart-first into the complexities of marriage, despairingly and triumphantly exploring its every nuance over 12 (mostly) stunning tracks.
Comparisons to James Blake and The xx were rightly thrown around last year, but with the prominence of Woolhouse’s lyrics on Songs, those similarities aren’t as useful this time around. The curious thing about the synthesised sounds here is that they don’t lose too much of the essential acoustic warmness.
If James Vincent McMorrow effortlessly captured the possibilities of spring on the stunning Post Tropical, then the melancholic, introspective, but no-less comforting Songs is its post-autumn equivalent. And like JVMcM, it’s the vulnerability in Goth’s lyrics and vocals that will soundtrack the solitude of winter, if given the time it deserves.
Woolhouse admits that his transition into more traditional singer-songwriter territory was somewhat accidental, but on tracks like the magnificent ‘The Lovers’ and downbeat closer ‘A Shelter, A Weapon’ the results seem anything but.
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