Album Review : Cherry Ghost - Beneath This Burning Shoreline
- Written by Lucy Dearlove
Genres are a minefield at the best of times, but has there ever been one less appealing than ‘alt-country’, particularly for a band this side of the Atlantic? Country music has never truly been part of the UK’s cultural history; while our musical heritage boasts the soft melodies and lovelorn lyrical sadness of folk, its murky depths of heartbreak, in which all great US country music seems to drown, are shallower and somehow less treacherous. The fact that a Tennessee accent and a penchant for bourbon are prerequisites for successfully writing great country music is probably considered no great loss to many, given its credibility is not exactly sky high, and while I don’t think I’m alone in confessing a soft spot for gold ol’ Dolly, the fact that ‘Cherry Ghost Alt Country’ returns almost 50,000 Google results might not count in their favour. Not to mention that ‘Alt’ is one of the worst prefixes of all time. Perhaps, while crawling their way through the unimaginable tedium of writing their own press releases in the early days, they threw in the offending genre without fully considering the consequences. However, it’s more likely that it’s a music hack’s fault and, more importantly, it shouldn’t put you off.
While the heartbreak and desperation doesn’t drip from every note and syllable of Cherry Ghost’s Beneath This Burning Shoreline in the way the genre suggests it should, Simon Aldred's vocals are quietly melancholic, while the arrangements swoop and haunt appropriately. This is the second album from this Bolton based band, following their 2008 Ivor Novello award for Best Contemporary Song. The pressure, therefore, is on.
And the songwriting is rather marvellous. Cherry Ghost aren't rewriting any rule books for guitar music and for what may or may not be considered 'country', but they're very good at what they do. While their Novello winner ‘People Help The People’ had a brashness about it that was almost verging on (dare I?) the Oasis-like, the body of Beneath This Burning Shoreline has a quiet fragility about it. Opening track ‘We Sleep On Stones’ has a whisper of ‘How Soon Is Now?‘ about it while ‘A Month Of Mornings’ swirls around National-esque drums, with Aldred crooning quietly 'Oh, rolling river/Go greet the seas across the ink black night'.
The album, starting strongly with these two great tracks, slides slightly into unremarkable over the middle section. Relying heavily on orchestral backing, the tenderness in the songwriting, which makes the beginning so successful, seems a little overwhelmed. Things pick up again around ‘The Night We Buried Sadie Clay’, which sounds a little like a grown up but still brilliant Coral. This Merseybeat influence seeps into the later tracks too, with ‘Luddite’ sounding more than a little bit skiffly. ‘Black Fang’ is another high point, though the sound strays into something that Frightened Rabbit might produce, had they Lancashire accents instead of Glaswegian. Overall, it's a pretty diversely influenced record.
While it's not consistently great, there are moments of brilliance on Beneath This Burning Shoreline, with a clear demonstration that Aldred was a deserved recipient of that Ivor Novello. Just don't call it country, alt or not.