Review Summary: Moody, graceful, and just subtle enough to not be completely monochromatic
And Also The Trees would be more than forgiven for coasting on critical legacy, if not fame. One of the more undeservedly underappreciated post-punk bands out there, they’ve been unjustly obscured by time and the names of their more splashy counterparts, bands who likewise labored in obscurity during their heyday, but who eventually managed to tumble into the collective consciousness of the internet age. Despite the lack of deserved acclaim however, they’ve carried themselves through the years with an unabated devotion to their craft, releasing album after album with a consistency in quality and a variety in expression that marks a genuine devotion to their art. Now, like a faded, haunting ghost of their former selves, And Also The Trees (who were never exactly tethered to this earth) have made an album that finds them floating in the ether, miles above their post-punk roots.
The songs on
Mother-of-pearl Moon are composed with a sense of delicacy that is as much a work of craft and consistency as it is of subtlety and mood. Where
The Bone Carver saw a band well-versed in its craft molding its sound into new shapes with the finesse and delicacy of a well-placed jeweler’s hammer,
Mother-of-Pearl Moon finds the band, if not quite stagnating, settling into a cool placidity, the music a silvery framework for Simon Jones’ somber, poetic intonations. After the moody stage-setting of the intro, the serene waltz of The Whaler, a delicate track marked by brushed drums and light woodwinds dancing around Jones’ lightly macabre mood. That delicacy is one of the crucial pillars of the album; imagine the sombre, lurid theatricality of Nick Cave poured into the mold of Mark Hollis’ serenely pastoral solo work. The effect, no less pastoral than And Also The Trees have always been, is one of tension and drama on a miniature scale, a series of chamber-vignettes set on the most minimalist of stages.
The album is, before everything else, beautiful, a set of delicate nocturnes that glide through time like a ghost-ship through a becalmed and misty sea, but there’s less of the vitality, the experimentation that was seen on
The Bone Carver, let alone the timeless-feeling pagan jitter of their earlier work. If anything, this feels like a serene, crystalline night-time companion to the occasionally violent diurnal fog of that predecessor. The unitive elegance of the complete package is admirable, hell, structurally and sonically this is an exquisite work, but it’s a work that inspires more respect than affection, at least initially. It’s another album where time and patience work together to reveal the subtly folded layers underneath the album’s placid surface. It’s very clear that this is at least partly And Also The Trees’ intent; the title of the album alone evokes so much of what is essential to this record, and what is reflected within. And while there’s still some measure of distance between me and
Mother-of-Pearl Moon, it’s a moon that, in spite, or perhaps because of that distance, is still more than worth gazing at.
