Hush Arbors - Hush Arbors
This record actually came out at the end of last year and somehow went under our radar until a few weeks ago, but it’s too good for us to not to give it an honourable, if somewhat belated, mention.
Hush Arbors is the brainchild of Keith Woods, assisted by right hand man Leon Dufficy. Although this is the first album under the Hush Arbors banner, Woods has been around for some time, contributing to Six Organs Of Admittance and Current 93 amongst others.
The album opens with a couple of minutes of the warmest, fuzziest guitar instrumental (‘Water’)you could ever wish to hear. A brilliant way to start and sucks the listener in to a nice, cosy place in which the rest of the album comfortably sits.
Woods’ voice is one of those acquired taste voices. If you like the style, it’s very reminiscent of 60’s Laurel Canyon types Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield and the like, you’ll love this. It’s sits easily alongside Fleet Foxes, you get the feeling if you looked they might have very much the same record collections.
‘Follow Closely’ is very Springfieldian all high, plaintive vocal and jangling guitars and ambles along at the same gentle pace that much of the album has. Guest Ben Chasny, of Comets On Fire and Six Organs, lays down a delicious guitar solo over the groove.
This is closely followed (see what I did there?) by ‘Rue Hollow’, a beautifully melancholic ballad of a restless wanderer and then ‘Gone’, a more rocking, up tempo tune with a distinctly psychedelic, garagey sound to it.
The highlight of the album though is ‘The Light’. The warm, fuzziness of ‘Water’ returns and rolls over the listener as Woods’ mournful voice weaves in and out of the lead guitar and this segues beautifully in to ‘Water II’ which reprises and then psychedelically expands upon the opening instrumental, spinning it out in to an epic blues space-jam to close.
The album throws a lot in to its mix, folk, psyche, blues and garage to mention just a few, and with these ingredients concocts a heady brew of spaced out, summery tunes, a perfect antidote to a snowbound London in winter.
Top Tracks: 'The Light', ‘Water II’.
Released October 20th on Ecstatic Peace