Music:

Fall and Winter

Exquisite is a strong word to use in a pop music review, but on ‘Fall and Winter’ it is entirely justified. This album (strictly a double EP) is almost flawless (another strong word). Jon Foreman is the lead singer of multi-platinum Christian stadium-rockers, Switchfoot, but this is the antithesis of stadium-rock.

Intimate, vulnerable, honest, and warm as a log-fire lounge during one of the titular seasons, the songs on this release are so refreshingly free of cliché, smugness or sloppy writing (musically or lyrically), every moment is a joy.

Personal confession, lamentation, love, meditations on the empty traps of modern existence and honest, understated, heartworship dominate the lyrical themes, but quirky, art-for-art’s sake ditties find a place too. Sounding like a deeper Dave Matthews Band with acoustic guitar, piano, cello, clarinet painting a gentle backdrop to vocals that never let passion drift into hysteria, this is music worth buying, treasuring and listening to again and again.

High: So many. Chiefly the line ‘build me a home inside your scars’ on ‘I am still running’.

Low: Semi-instrumental track, ‘In Love’, but on other albums it would be a highlight.

Reviewed by Jonathan Langley, a freelance writer and former DJ.

Published by: Lowercase people records
Price: £12.00