Reviews

Richard Neuberg
Album: The Vine
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 11
Website: https://richardneubergmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-vine

Since Viarosa’s SEND FOR THE SEA, released in 2008, Richard Neuberg, the band’s front man has battled with chronic illness. The magnetic vocalist and musician has worked around ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which put his career as a producer on hiatus and stretched out the sessions for this new album over five years. His characterful and mesmeric voice has gained more gravitas and presence, while the feel of the music builds on the Fink, Cohen or The Church rumble of Viarosa while taking it in a more intimate direction.

“Everything Dark Is Light” is a gloriously sensuous, dark slow dance. Neuberg rolls his vocal notes like a folky retro Richard Hawley dancing with Leonard Cohen. Atmosphere, pace and the lush strings suggest wonderfully gothic Scott Walker or David Sylvian at his most languid. “Saltwater” has layers of Nick Drake guitar and another celestial arrangement. Richard recorded the music for THE VINE in 2020 before he was laid low by debilitating and ongoing illness. The characterful vocals on tracks like “Saltwater” or “Crow Needs The Pine”, as rich and charged as Nick Mulvey are sketches, hurriedly laid down as guides for the string players, before circumstances cruelly conspired against Neuberg. While restrained compared to the roar of Viarosa, nothing about Richard’s singing suggests dry runs or try outs, it is, gloriously considered and deliberate.

His rolling Spanish style flourishes on “Crow Need The Pine” that deliver heat and his chiming electric on “Gold In The River” amply demonstrate that Neuberg is also an atmospheric guitarist, spinning delicate webs of notes. As do the hypnotic runs on stunning “Prayer Wheel”. Lyrics talk of navigating difficulties, hard choices and battles fought. “Hide And Seek” is edgy, angular, almost upbeat and shot through with beauty. Richard’s intimate croon on this and “The Fever”, set against spectacular guitar picking and some angular electronics is superb.

Strings can smother an album, often running like anodyne sonic filler through undercooked arrangements plugging holes. However on THE VINE, nodding to Robert Kirby’s understated Drake accompaniment, they quietly simmer coming to the fore on “The Fever”. Johnny Parry’s arrangements are considered and delicately layered with touches of piano on “Better Ways To Mend” and “Bells And Whistles” that hang in the air as accents to Richard’s songs. Strings and guitar dance beautifully around the old school cinematic beauty of “A History”. A theme tune for a retro melancholic Bond or Harry Palmer film. Absolutely loved the addition of the choir like backing vocals on this stand out track too.

Theatrical and painted with a huge brush, the expansive closer “Weed Out The Wine” has Richard’s shimmering guitar melding John Martyn to the eternal shimmer of North African Desert Blues. Neuberg sings on this track with Fe Salomon in a duet that is an album highlight offering hope and affirmation before a glorious guitar crescendo as expansive as the best of Dean McPhee and the new electric guitar wizards. Of course its the final track, simply because how do you follow that

It’s not going to bother daytime mainstream radio but THE VINE has a hypnotic melancholia, a late-night dark sensuality that suits reflective listening with a glass of something smooth. Love the watercolour or ink and bleach luminance of Emma Neuberg’s cover too, a focus for that quiet contemplation. THE VINE’S playing and arrangements are considered and layered and have given me Viarosa, Richard Neuberg and Fe Salomon to explore further.

Marc Higgins

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