Skillful restraint delivers on Honeyglaze’s self-titled debut album.
Speedy Wunderground and south London? How can it fail?
Are there any other independent labels with a better hit rate right now? Having represented black midi, Black Country, New Road, Jane Weaver, Squid and Stephen Fretwell (among many others) over the last few years, their newest album release is the latest band on south London’s (England’s creative hotbed) conveyor belt of talent.
Remarkably, Honeyglaze’s lead vocalist and guitarist, Anouska Sokolow, met her bandmates (Tim Curtis on bass and Yuri Shibuichi on drums) officially at their first ever rehearsal, three days prior to their first gig of many at the by-now-legendary venue The Windmill in Brixton.
The first lockdown only briefly knocked them off their stride, and following a live session recorded in a garage, Speedy Wunderground’s head honcho Dan Carey reached out to sign the trio. With prestigious support slots for Wet Leg in the calendar, everything would appear to be primed for Honeyglaze.
This debut should sustain the momentum with ease. It’s an album designed to reward patient listeners, brittle and understated at first but with bucketloads of charm.
The opening track (fittingly called Start) takes its own, laconic time as a gentle, initially-imperceptible acoustic strum is joined by distant vocals and drums which create an overall sense of unease, but followed by the instant warm of Shadows, it’s revealed to be unreflective of the album as a whole.
Shadows (‘always complete me late at night’) is desert-dry in production but stacked with the finest of jangly hooks, while the deft I Am Not Your Cushion (‘I am so confused between loneliness and trust’) takes awkwardness and vulnerability and turns it into a tender super-power.
Sokolow’s vulnerability is once again laid bare on Creative Jealousy as shuffling drums complement synth-driven vibes, while Half Past begins as both frail and matter-of-fact before upping the gusto and temp levels at its mid-point.
Sokolow adopts surrealist, spoken-word delivery on Deep Murky Water, finding the perfect mid-point between Laura Marling and Brittany Howard (in her more controlled moments) in a song which covers resignation of a failed romance with a bassline which rolls and has to be held back from rollicking.
Elsewhere, the spectral Childish Things fizzes and glides until it becomes a cleansing rain shower over its six minute run-time. Honeyglaze’s instrumentation may be, for now, consciously limited but one suspects, based on the ambition shown here, that further efforts will broaden their musical palette.
Indeed, the album seems to pride itself on appearing simple, at points even basic, but the song structure is so competent and progressive that it’s impossible to comprehend that it’s been rushed or given anything less than love.
For example, the sprawling Burglar is delicate and acoustic but continually alternates the pace in a fashion which brings to mind In Rainbows-era Radiohead; almost robotic in efficiency but undoubtedly human in delivery.
Christening something as a ‘grower’ is normally back-handed praise, but not when the starting point is as advanced as here. Combining humour and pathos so expertly usually takes time and practice, but Honeyglaze have hit that particular sweet spot at their first attempt.