Reviews

Adam Beattie
Album: Home Fires Burning
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 13
Website: https://www.adambeattie.com/

With the title a reminder of what is important, Adam Beattie's HOME FIRES BURNING is a meditative look at formative experiences with Beattie's own life underpinning this deeply moving song cycle. With Adam playing guitars, and bass and support from Owen Spafford, Sarah Beattie, Fiona Bevan, Mikey Kenney, Anna McLuckie and others, this is a lush album. However the delicate arrangements and skilled production mean that it sounds light as air.

"Home Fires Burning" with a beautiful guitar motif, is a tender song about leaving home and the changes that you find when you come back. Beattie is in excellent voice with flourishes of Sarah Beattie's violin and Zac Gvi's accordion standing for the folky grounding of home. Themes, stories and people weave the album together, "Brother I Never Had" is the first appearance of Adam's cousin. Hypnotic guitar and Beattie's treated but cracked vocal give us hints of an emotional end. Anger at the brutality of school run through the song tempered by a tender vocal. "To All The Boys" is a stunning lullaby of a song, Adam and Fiona Bevan's voices are a balm in this cry for showing emotion and not holding it in.

With sensitively layered instruments and atmospherics stand out "Golden Hour" is a blissed hymn to taking a moment, perfectly placed after two emotional songs with Beattie lost in a reverie for his family and passing time. With a delicately layered arrangement "Eye Of The Storm" is a stunningly tender song about home as a refuge. Again Beattie and Bevan are in fine voice while instruments swirl around them like a tender maelstrom. Another standout with an impeccable croon of a voice and powerful guitar is "Leave The Hall Light On". 'So I know I'm not alone leave the hall light on' says, it all really, with a gripping coda, where Adam sings, about being there for his mother when she needs him. Ann Beattie full of life is the last voice you hear on the track.

"Girl From The Seaside Town" is a song about lost love and regrets that reads like a short story. "Glasgow Kiss" with its charged title and an upbeat chorus reeks of both love and danger. Love and tenderness runs through another gripping short story song as bookended by a brief musical codas, Adam speak sings the misadventure of his already mentioned lost cousin. "Rainy Morning Late November" though deals with real life so there is no tidy realised ending. "Big Bad World" is, a roar against violence, moving effortlessly from the micro to the global. "Silver City" is a final song of hopes and dreams encapsulated in in a pound given while busking and the Oz like promise of the titular city.

This is a simply beautiful album. Powerful layered songs are carried on sensitive skilled arrangements. Adam Beattie's singing, song writing and playing underpin a thematically linked set bursting with emotion. Love, home and family run through the songs with Beattie's parents on the cover and at the centre of the album. Philip Larkin famously said, commenting on a grave memorial, "what will survive of us is love". The front cover with Adam and his father speaks volumes of hall lights, home fires, love and real emotion, leading you into this revealing and ultimately tender album.

Marc Higgins

Previous	Next
Chris Clark: Across A Carnival	sundayclub: sundayclub

Recent Reviews

Plectrum

Fatea Showcase Sessions

The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.

Corsair is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy

www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.

Visit The FATEA Archive!