Clear Lower Child: Hiss – album assessment

Clear Lower Child: Hiss

(Alcopop!)

Vinyl/CD/DL

Out Now

I’m not crying. You’re. I’ve simply bought one thing in my ear. The fourth album from Liverpool’s cuddly tearjerkers, Clear Lower Child has all of the sniffle-inducing qualities of a misplaced canine poster, a pungent onion and an autumn mini-budget mixed.

It’s the sound of an ego (within the easy psychological sense), worn paper-thin, tearing itself aside, fuelled by Mike Halls’ experiences of lockdown. When inspired to responsibly (sarcastically because it turned out) play our half and keep at house, many people rinsed field units, went for walks and really spoke to shut members of the family for a change. Having made the moral choice to not spy on Mike throughout the pandemic, I can’t communicate for his day-to-day distractions, however Hiss embodies his total tackle lockdown: that it felt like a stable rehearsal for future loss.

For those who keep in mind Conor Oberst’s 2016 album, Ruminations, you may properly use it as a barometer for what Hiss appears like. Oberst composed Ruminations in a snow-bound Omaha cabin while recovering from debilitating sickness. When recording the tracks in a studio, he preserved that sense of highly effective isolation, slowly and softly sandpapering his soul. Clear Lower Child made Hiss in their very own house studio, furnished with classic analogue gear. The setting clearly fits the album’s content material: private, non-public, introspective. Selecting Hiss as a title may as simply swimsuit that atmospheric snap, crackle and pop that sits atop analogue recordings and lingers throughout musical silences, or the serpent that lurks in our consciousness and tempts us into self-destructive ideas.

For a band who not too long ago discovered a house on Alcopop! Data (Workforce Love within the USA) and began an thrilling new chapter, there’s rather a lot about potential endings: dropping mother and father, mates, companions, dropping your inventive muse and fully dropping your self. In observe 5, Inside My Head, we hear Mike query, “After I’ve written all of the songs inside my head, will I like what I’ve turn out to be?” The hypothetical choices don’t sound too interesting (“mediocre husband”, “common son”, “shitty pal”). The ultimate picture he contemplates is being a person in his fifties, on ever-shrinking levels, “Nonetheless dragging his spouse alongside for the journey.” Within the custom of The Beatles’ Once I’m Sixty-4, the observe has a bounce and a verve that intentionally clashes with its material. Hit and Miss examines the likelihood that songs will nonetheless emerge, however lose their attraction.

The album closes with a set on mortality, with Louis Be Courageous, Into The Tall Grass and Golden Ribbon. The ultimate observe (Golden Ribbon) takes up the place the observe Jean left off on their first album, Felt. It’s one of many ‘Easter Egg’ moments that the band have positioned inside Hiss, with components and motifs from earlier materials sprinkled all through. For those who’re not sobbing and snotting after Mike’s monologue on the final track (excerpts from the eulogy of his grandad, Jimmy – Jean’s husband), then you then deserve your very personal hiss – in a Christmas panto villain model.

She Takes A Capsule is about anti-depressants and appears like an anti-depressant, bringing us Mike and Evelyn Halls’ ‘Kenny and Dolly’ second. ‘Wasted Hours’ pays tribute to Mike’s favorite waste of time and greatest mate, his canine. Heavy As is a gorgeous ‘father and son’ observe within the best Cat Stevens custom. Discovering the sweetness in uncertainty, Hiss contemplates what’s left when life appears empty. Its conclusion – love underlies all and love all the time prevails.

Clear Lower Child on-line: web site, Fb, Twitter, Instagram and SoundCloud.

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All phrases by Jon Kean. Extra writing by Jon on Louder Than Battle could be discovered at his creator’s archive. He tweets as @keanotherapy.