It’s no secret multi-award winning English folkie Ben Howard found life tough in the wake of 2011’s chart-topping Every Kingdom. “The more attention I got, the less I wanted it,” he said in a recent interview. His new record also finds him reflecting on the vagaries of fame.
At times grandiose and dripping with melodrama, this dense and defiant offering is very much “the difficult second album” – at least for record label suits who have to try to sell it. There are no immediate “hits” in the vein of ‘Only Love’ or ‘Keep Your Head Up.’ Instead, it’s a collection of brooding numbers which play with guitar tones (‘Small Things’) and ambient textures (‘I Forget Where We Were’). Sometimes the record feels too unremarkably samey (‘She Treats Me Well’), but when he hits his stride, especially on the Fleetwood Mac-ish freak-out, ‘End Of The Affair,’ Howard reminds us why we fell in love with him in the first place.
OUT OCTOBER 17.