Andy White - How Things Are

Belfast-born, one-time Dublin (and Switzerland) resident, Andy White has certainly lived up to the title of “troubadour”. Having brought his poetic lyrics and well turned-out tunes around the world several times over, he eventually settled in Melbourne.

His latest, heavily informed by the dissolution of his 15-year marriage, is a classic “breakup” album in the vein of Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker and Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks. If the tone is downbeat, the melodies are surprisingly animated and jaunty. Defiance mixed with anger and a full-on guitar and rhythm assault backdrop opener ‘Driftin’’. “I’ve been sick, I’ve been well, I’ve been living in my personal hell,” he sings. White lays bare his soul on the poignant and heartbreaking mid-tempo ballad, ‘Separation Street’, which finds him aimlessly roaming old haunts, “avoiding places where we could meet.” Coming across like Van Morrison on his Into The Mystic album, his soul-searching intensifies, when he pleads, “don’t want a witness to my distress...”

Elsewhere, on ‘Jessica Says’ a jangly, power-pop affair, he momentarily shakes off the melancholy mood: “When your life feels empty... you gotta get away.” Meanwhile, on ‘Band Of Gold’ he rues that, “the greatest story of love is gone cold.” And on ‘All It Does Is Rain’ he offers a bit of sage advice in the form of a toast: “Here’s to all the men who didn’t see it coming.”

The penultimate track ‘Picture Of You’ is arguably the bluntest as the truth of his predicament finally dawns: “I was thinking, I don’t make you happy and that’s the end of the story.”

Not half as difficult a listen as you might suspect, How Things Are is up there with White’s best work; the packaging includes hand-written lyrics and artwork, the image of a lone Claddagh ring telling its own story.