Songs of self-reflection and private reckoning on album #7 from The Veils – Anglo-New Zealand singer-songwriter Finn Andrews.
Release Date: 24th January 2025
Label: V2 Records
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
THINGS ARE VERY DIFFERENT…
Asphodels – the album takes its title from the Ancient Greek flower of the Underworld – marks a new phase in the ongoing career of The Veils. It’s the seventh album to be released under the auspices of frontman and founder Finn Andrews, son of XTC founding member Barry Andrews. A quickfire follow-up to his 2023 offering, …And Out of the Void Came Love, and its appearance comes just over 20 years after the Andrews/Veils 2004 debut, The Runway Found. This time around, things are very different…
Asphodels is the result of a collaboration between Andrews and string arranger Victoria Kelly. Anyone expecting an album of indie sounds, peppered with imaginative electronica will need to re-adjust their viewfinder. Asphodels is an album of self-reflection and private reckoning. A collection of intimate songs on which Finn’s vivid vocals and challenging lyrics are projected by the sparsest of accompaniments; a single piano and Victoria’s often discrete strings.
LOVE AND DEATH – A COMPULSION
Speaking of the thoughts and emotions that inspired the album, Finn has said: “I feel as though this album is the end result of a now disconcertingly long career in music. I think, after your seventh album, much like turning 40, you should really stop counting. I’ve learned a lot along the way, which I suppose is the whole point. I’ve really distilled it into these nine songs. As always, I really just write about love and death – it’s a compulsion – and that is, once again, the case here. But I feel as though I’ve never been able to express this stuff rattling about in my brain quite as directly until now. I have rarely felt proud of anything I’ve made for very long. This one feels different. It’s built on a strong foundation, I think.”
And, a large part of that difference – and that strong foundation – is driven by Finn’s preference for taking his lyrical cues from recognized poets, rather than from the more conventional rock & roll idiom. As he explains: “I lack the discipline to be a poet, so songwriting has always felt like the right place for me. But poets like Lorca, Ted Hughes and Louis MacNeice have all influenced my songwriting a great deal. It’s in writing and then singing these words that I feel most useful in the world, I suppose.”
NOT JUST WORDS
It isn’t just the words, of course. Finn is quick to recognize the impact that Victoria’s string arrangements have brought to the sound. The ambience and the textures make Asphodels such a singular album. “I really wanted the string arrangements to behave like another member of the band,” he says. ” We even fleshed the character out, like an actor playing a role. It’s this collaboration with Vic that is really at the centre of this record, I think.”
BATHE IN THE SOUND
Asphodels is certainly different. It’s an album that invites the listener bathe in its sound and to absorb its lyrical messages. Preferably from a comfortable position in a warm room in which there are no other distractions. That’s an impression that becomes firmly established right from the outset. Finn’s voice is wonderfully vivid as the title track opens the album. The accompaniment – tinkling piano, soft bass and the lightest touches of percussion – is as discrete as it’s possible to be. Yet, this is a song that will demand repeated listens as the listener searches for the meanings in Finn’s lyrics: “But what is my love now? What, for me, do tell. My memory fades in The Everglades, and I guess that’s just as well.”
Finn’s voice is intimate and soothing for O Fortune Teller, a dreamy, mystical piano ballad. The simple piano theme is supplemented by Victoria’s strings. Sometimes spacey, sometimes lush with Finn providing his own vocal harmonies to complete the picture.
The contemplative The Ladder might be considered to be a more conventional style of ballad. The sparse piano accompaniment is fleshed out by rich strings and a gentle drumbeat, before Finn introduces a touch of jazz for the exquisite The Dream of Life. This is a song that, to some extent, typifies the feel of the whole album. It’s almost like a song that you’d hear in an upmarket lounge bar as you sipped your expensive cocktail, until you realise that lyrics like: “On one day I was born and on some day I must die; between immersions in darkness, we are walking in the light” are rather more intense than you’d normally expect in such a setting.
THOUGHT-PROVOKING
The production is brighter and the mood is more upbeat for Mortal Wound. However, the lyrical messages are as mixed as ever. The listener is left to wonder whether the song is joyful and optimistic, or more fatalistic than ever. Finn takes on a Lou Reed persona for his delivery of the half-spoken, half-sung The Sun. It’s one of the album’s highlights, as Victoria’s strings temper the sinister and threatening, edge to Finn’s vocals with a dash of vulnerability.
And, just when you’re starting to believe that you’ve got a handle on Asphodels, things take a left-turn. Victoria’s sweet intro to Melancholy Moon yields to an upbeat calypso rhythm and Finn sounds almost as conciliatory as Al Stewart. The threats are still there within the lyrics, but Finn manages to convey a joyful message, nevertheless. The contrast in moods remains for Concrete After Rain. A song in which light sweeps of piano provide a deceptively lighthearted accompaniment to dystopian lyrics like: “Well I thought I saw the whole world drowned from beyond the light and thunder, yeh – I saw the whole world drowned, as I stood there in awe and wonder.”
GOSPEL FLAVOURS
And, to close an absorbing album, Finn re-assumes his Lou Reed mantle for the gospel-flavoured A Land Beyond. Perhaps the album’s most unashamedly optimistic song, with lyrics that offer hope for a better life in a better place. Somehow, it feels like a nice way to conclude such a thought-provoking album.
Looking back at his finished product, Finn described Asphodels as: “…an album about love and death. I’m very proud of it and I hope it might provides you with the same solace and insight that it has so generously afforded me.” I think it does…
Watch the official video to The Ladder – a track from the album – here:
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