Dry Land

Multi-layered, mellow and sumptuously melodic, Dry Land, the follow-up to the well-received 2000 debut Love Lost, is a quiet triumph for songwriter Alan Kelly, who effectively is The Last Post.

Recalling everyone from the inspired amateurism of Belle & Sebastian to The Cocteau Twins low-key melancholia, with elements of Jeff Buckley and The Beach Boys, Dry Land betrays a heavy heart.

The songs, which barely reach walking pace, don’t so much follow each other one-by-one, as blend seamlessly and dreamily into one another. The opener, ‘Something Tells Me You’d Be Good For Me’ with its lovely loping basslines, crisp snare and heart-warming harmonies, virtually melts into the similarly constructed, ‘Only Thing That Eases The Pain’.

‘Waiting’ (featuring David Kitt on vocals) is almost gothic-country meets the Go-Betweens, a smart combination of jangly textures and shimmering high-land melody. The hopeless, desperate pleading of ‘Can’t Wait ‘til Tomorrow’ echoes the sentiment in Brian Wilson’s, ‘Don’t Talk Put Your Head On My Shoulder’, while ‘You’ve Got It All’, with it’s the sparse arrangement slowly building into a crescendo of voices and guitars, is a genuine highlight.

On the downside there is a sameness (no doubt intentional) to the pace of the songs most of which are saturated in strings, organ and sundry other subtle instrumental embellishments; rarely it has to be said to the detriment of the songs

It’s not exactly a bundle of laughs either – Kelly’s otherworldly melodies and love-lorn lyrics come straight from the heart and dark night of the soul. But in the right frame of mind and in small doses this can be spirit-lifting stuff.

A late-night, early-morning album, if ever there was one – a broken heart rarely sounded this compelling.