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Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Old Pine | |||
| 2. Diamonds | |||
| 3. The Wolves | |||
| 4. Everything | |||
| 5. Only Love | |||
| 6. The Fear | |||
See all 10 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. These Waters | |||
| 2. Empty Corridors (Live) | |||
| 3. Under The Same Sun | |||
| 4. Bones | |||
| 5. I Will Be Blessed | |||
| 6. Move Like You Want (Live) | |||
| Disc: 3 | |||
| 1. Old Pine (Music Video) | |||
| 2. The Wolves (Music Video) | |||
| 3. Keep Your Head Up (Music Video) | |||
| 4. The Wolves (Woodland Sessions) | |||
| 5. Old Pine (Woodland Sessions) | |||
| 6. Everything (Woodland Sessions) | |||
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See all 9 tracks on this disc
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Product Description
Review
What he is, on the evidence of this impressive debut album, is a gifted and immediately involving singer-songwriter. The 23-year-old from Devon - or "Devonshire", as his record company rather self-consciously refers to his home county - has pretty diverse musical tastes: he posts videos by artists as disparate as Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin and Robyn on his personal blog. However, it's the music of John Martyn and Bon Iver, both of whom he listens to "a lot", that has a tangible impact on his sound.
That's right, this fella's a folkie: his musical tools are nimbly-plucked guitar strings, near-choral backing harmonies, percussion that feels pastoral rather than processed, the evocative tones of India Bourne's cello. The term 'folk-pop' rather brings to mind JCB Song one-hit wonders Nizlopi, which Howard's music rather does not, but the lad does have a knack for a hook: with its sing-along chorus and positive sentiments, current single Keep Your Head Up could almost be called a "self-empowerment anthem".
Radio-friendly it may be, but there's nothing fey about Howard's folk: his up-tempo numbers have the muscular momentum of a galloping stallion, while his more subdued songs are underpinned by sinewy rhythms and a certain weightiness of theme. For example, the lovely Everything deals with the inevitability of renewal and change, while the slow-building and panoramic Black Flies is essentially a break-up song.
Whether he's singing about love or the world around him, Howard invariably taps the natural world for imagery: this is an album of horses and wolves, the wind and the sea, in which one's relative insignificance in the scheme of things is likened to being "just a blade in the grass". But what could seem clich�d on the page has resonance on record, thanks to the husky soulfulness of Howard's voice and the sheer good nature of his songwriting. By the time he uses the album's closing track to ask his paramour "Who am I to you?", you're really hoping her answer is "The One".
--Nick Levine
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
CD Description
Customer Reviews
I don't usually like listening to the radio, nor do I ever like a track on first hearing it.
Neither of these were true here.
As soon as I got home, I had to make my husband find the track on the internet and listen to it whilst I went to Amazon to buy the song.
I bought the single but, was gutted to see that I'd have to wait for the album.
But, time's up and finally I could download it.
I hate to use the word catchy but, that's what happens with this music. It catches you, hooks you, gets right in there and sticks in your head.
I think this is going to be played over and over until I know every song word for word.
Fabulous.
Ben Howard is supremely talented and is surely destined for big, big things.
In a world where our ears are constantly assaulted with ever increasingly plastic, non-inspiring, formulaic produce from X-factor and other corporate arenas resulting in a chart devoid of music for the soul, and where of my generation (34) we have been lacking proper representation of talent in the folk/singer/songwriter mainstream for a long time since Damien Rice's brilliant 0; finally we have someone to draw inspiration from.
Modern music needs Ben Howard.
If you like Bon Iver, Nick Drake, Damien Rice et all, then dont even think about it...just buy it. It will warm your soul...
In fact, if you like good music, buy this album.
If perhaps, like me, you were dissapointed with Ed Sheran's debut- purchase this and be thoroughly satisfied...
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