And Kris Drever, we love what you’re doing! A stellar opus, which, if drawn from a back drawer of despair, could well be the Orcadian’s best yet!

THAT MOMENT IS NOW

Sometimes these reviews take longer than others, as the music sifts around the noggin, waiting for quite the right moment to state more solidly the case. This is one such album, bolstered finally into place by catching the artist play a song or two live, that being the impetus to the realisation that duly followed.

NO INTRODUCTION REQUIRED

Drever needs no, or shouldn’t, introduction, a couple of decades into a career that has seen him working with kindred spirits like John McCusker and Roddy Woomble, in the mighty Lau and on his own. That he was been deemed worthy of a best of retrospective, a year or three back, sometimes suggests a muse in decline, but, as this set reveals, anything but, this possibly being his strongest set yet. Yet it so nearly didn’t happen, these songs finding first shape in lockdown, ahead completion last year and then promptly shelved. Disillusioned, and with confidence sapping, it was only a chance encounter with old buddy, Euan Burton, that galvanised him into booking studio time and getting them down. (Good on yer, Burton, fella!)

GLORIOUSLY DOLEFUL

It is the title track up first, a sotto voce count in immediately setting the tone. A sombre guitar chords in an introduction to Drever’s gloriously doleful voice. and we’re off, an organ meandering as backdrop, alongside some dreamily wonky sax. A rhythm section apply muscle, fuzz pedal to the floor, around the bones of what is a a terrific, if gaunt, opener, an invitation to view Drever’s MO: “I’m doing this for love, chasing the money round, got to keep the divil down“. He sounds world weary and battered, as he pushes his Sysiphean stone ever onward and upward. Seldom has the role of a performer seemed less glamorous. It should be compulsory listening for anyone considering packing in the day job, for a life on the road as a strolling troubadour. And make us all the more grateful that Drever did.

DUSTY

Change suggests a lighter tone, as a delicate sparkle of guitar dances out the intro. Nonetheless, the mood still hinges on a tangible maudlin. Perhaps this comes with the territory of an Orkney upbringing, perhaps from having a dusty rust-coloured crack in your voice. Or maybe just it’s the lyrical thrust: “Change is never going to change, nothing ever stays the same“. It is that old buddy Burton on the bass and Louis Abbott on drums, their accompaniment warm and familiar, like a favourite old tweed jacket.

The mood does, however, lift for the wondrously wry, Bring Back Hanging Around, as Drever teases out the words, a palpable gap before “around” makes contact, lest anyone feel the writer’s gone all Daily Mail. It is a song and a chorus I can’t get out of my mind, the sentiment so worthwhile and deserving to be cherished. The handclaps alone are worth the price of admission.

The flickering banjo of current tour mate, Cahalen Morrison, bubbles through the otherwise spiky and sturdy Magic Friend, as electric guitars distort and Abbott’s drums thump. Background vocals come from the Rachels Sermanni and Lightbody, providing a textural contrast to Drever’s own tones. Pilot Whales then bounces out, an electric allegorical sea shanty, again graced by Sermanni’s voice and soaring synthetic strings. It strikes me this is the folkiest song so far, and that even fades soon after the first stanza. Those who pigeonhole Drever as folk music, and then pull the accompanying sour face that the foolish so often do, in association with the f word, should dispense with that lazy categorisation forthwith; these are, for all the tinkling acousticity, grown up rock songs and merit such attention away from any silo.

INCOMING WAVES

Just as that point is made, Save A Space is then a country fumed ballad, with organ, it also, and across the album, from Burton, billowing about it and further forthright percussion from the Admiral Fallow man. The saxophone returns, but it is the ragged incoming waves of Drever’s amplified guitar that linger most. More banjo for Does Your Sleep Feel Like Rest, a litany of those night time thoughts that puncture the zeds, providing the strongest pointer yet to the intricacies of the production, shared by Drever and Burton, as the varied strands and myriad layers of instrumentation slide seamlessly together. This is turning out to be a really top listen.

The stripped back Every Time displays the strength of Drever’s finger picking, the song then subject to a slow burn of building emotion, helmed by a wash of fauxchestration. Yes, this may be, is, even, a somewhat sentimental love song, but it is of the calibre of Gerry Rafferty at his best, Drever’s voice here uncannily like that of the deceased sage of Paisley. That reference triggered, it won’t shift, with Still The Boy having me mind how good were Stealer’s Wheel. Piano and fiddle dip in an out and is that whistling towards the end? I hope so.

A MASTERFUL PERFORMANCE

The final track, and the one that seals the deal is Catterline, a reprise from 2023’s retrospective, if there appearing for the first time. There it was a solo rendition. Here it positively glistens with the band arrangement given it, electric piano adding glowing lines to the overall feel, as an organ hums and Drever peels out a controlled sonic of blistering electric notes from his guitar. All the while, Burton and Abbott exert a steady pair of hands in the engine room. A masterful performance.

SINGER-SONGWRITER AOTY?

The realisation, alluded to in the first para? That this is quite possibly the best singer-songwriter album of the year. The musicianship is stellar, with, besides those already mentioned, Matthew Herd on sax and mellotron, Trent Freeman on fiddle and Sam Mabbett on accordion, with further keyboards and bvs from Michelle Willis. But all that would be nought, were it not for the songs and the singer. This review may be late, but let’s give the record all the more of a shout. It’ll be a nice surprise for Drever, and that stone might seem less a burden.

Here’s a live version of the title track, featuring most of the main culprits:

Kris Drever: Website

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