Steve Adey is back, six years after his acclaimed debut All Things Real, with a new full length album, The Tower of Silence.
There is something about a fully thought out album that appeals to me, LPs that are designed to be played from start to finish in the prescribed order without gaps. I guess there many over-complicated theories that would cite modern listening habits and the ease of ignoring all but your favourite tracks (sure, you could skip CDs, but you can go as far as to delete MP3s, keeping your three or four prefered tracks) but I think my fascination with these types of albums is just the presumed care and attention which has gone into them. A carefully considered track order suggests an intentional arc in narrative or themes across the record. It suggests real thought, the album as a piece of art rather than a collection of attention-seeking singles.
The Tower of Silence is such an album. Adey’s style has not changed since his debut, with the slow and piano-driven tracks boldly outlined with his melancholic baritone. The effect is best described as emotional. The songs are mournful, desperate, confused and downright sad. ‘Laughing’ (which can be heard below) is a perfect example of his work, with the piano supporting both his mournful lyrics and the ghostly backing.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/57089046″]
In the few reviews I have read to date, much is made of his choice to record the album in an Edinburgh church (and the significance of this against the spiritual themes and feelings). This is a fair point to a degree; there is definitely a sort of Biblical feel to the songs, in the way of Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen. However, the idea that all of the themes on the album are otherworldly is misleading. There is much focus on belief (and consequential regret) but maybe not quite in the awesome omnipotent way some would suggest. Instead I see common emotions, regular feelings of regular people struggling to understand and connect with other regular people. The slow pace and quietly engulfing sadness on the record heighten these feelings of reality. There’s no quixotic preaching or impossible promises, just a meandering sense of weight and sadness and absence of control. Where many pop songs are our inner dreams brought to life, here Adey brings to life our inner emotions, empathetic yes, but also susceptible to anxiety and dread, an inescapable and often inexplicable grief.
The Tower of Silence is out on 26th November (today). Buy it direct from his website here.