A kind of closure

UK duo Tram’s third album is a deceptively calm affair. Paul Anderson and Nick Avery’s music is disarmingly slow and measured, almost elegiac, and seems perfect going-to-bed fare, sleepy basslines and gentle guitar swathes seeming to massage your temples before reaching your ears.

Lyrically, however, the protagonists of these songs are in a state of emotional turmoil and the apparent airiness of the music is more than balanced by the heavyweight, passionate wordsmithery.

Take album opener, ‘Three Years’: the bones of the music are fleshed out with some delicate strings, as soothing as a summer day with nothing to do. Then you realise that Anderson is singing about deceit, suspicion and ultimate betrayal, and you start to worry about whether you should be enjoying this so much: it’s like being a voyeur into someone else’s deepest pain.

The almost achingly beautiful ‘Forlorn Labour’ delves into similarly murky water: a gorgeously delicate ballad, it seems so frail that if you turn the volume up too loud it will disappear into mist, and then you get to the lines: “There’s better ways to spend my days/ Than waste my life on you”. Similarly, ‘You Let Me Down’ or ‘Understand’ could be emotional, if not musical, siblings of Blood On The Tracks.

‘A Painful Education’ sees the duo veer into alt. country territory, aided by the brilliant Fiona Brice on violin and Moira Campbell on backing vocals.

The title track starts off a little too ethereal for its own good but by the end of its five minute-plus duration, Tram have built up what for them is quite a head of steam.

A Kind Of Closure’s marriage of sweetly melodic arrangements and unflinchingly honest lyricism is a compelling if not always comfortable journey.