This second full-length from Swedish multi-instrumentalist Rickard Javerling
starts beautifully with the intoxicating instrumental 'Salt Hill Pt. 1'. Opening
up with lovely, layered fingerpicked acoustic guitar passages, the track goes
on to embrace ethereal pedal steel and heart-meltingly delicate glockenspiel
melodies - it's a laudably seductive piece, and yet immediately after such
auspicious beginnings along comes 'May & Lee' (the first vocal track, on the
album) whose lyrics turn out to be mind-bendingly banal, sing-songy, arbitrary
rhymes. The music itself remains gloriously impervious to fault, yet listeners
of a particularly sensitive disposition will find themselves at great pains to
overlook "Lee/Wanna see/Bumblebee/Up a tree/It's me/Time for tea/A to
Z [pronounced 'zee']/Gee, it's so easy". Not so much a song as an indefensible
verbal spillage. Just when you're starting to really get cross at old Javerling
for penning such nonsense you notice in the booklet that he's actually lifted
these lyrics from the Shoreline song 'Sounds Like'. It's twee, cutesy foolishness
of the most disheartening kind, and really doesn't fit with the Swede's undoubted
skills as an instrumentalist and arranger. Thankfully, we're fully back on track
in time for 'Wedding Ring', another rich instrumental, this time full of evocative
exchanges between tuned percussion and mournful brass. From here on the
album is an unqualified success, stopping by some wistful chamber-country
sounds during 'Train To C' before tackling more successful vocal pieces on
'Rest Your Eyes' and 'Little Bird'. The two final tracks are especially
good: 'April' expands from a hauntingly sombre harmonica-led piece into
a downbeat string composition, only for 'Sun Valley' to continue in lavishing
you with ear-ticklingly orchestral textures, wrapping up the album on a
bright, optimistic note.