Shady Bard From The Ground Up by: Steve Scully Mon:23-Apr-07 Label: Static Caravan Year: 2007 WB rating 82 out of 100

I’m a sucker for a nice, piano-driven alt-rock song. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t gush over Coldplay’s power-balladry or Snow Patrol’s borderline-pop tearjerkers, but when a British bloke with a quiet, shaky voice sits at a piano, I usually give it at least half a listen.

‘Bobby’, the second track on From the Ground Up, is a beautiful example of how effectiveness is not synonymous with epic; how a bone-rattling crescendo is not the only answer. Shady Bard pace themselves, at no point over-indulging; there’s a grace to the arrangement: the acoustic guitar brings texture to the track, while understated percussion, strings and a touch of harmonica maintain the song’s lush, earthy feel. The lyrics too are superbly structured and phrased; simply expressed, complex in the ideas they convey: “Bobby decided to shoot down the sun/So he put on his shoes and he loaded his gun/And he went outside/And aimed his gun at the sky.” The chorus, repeating the words, “We’re all to blame/We’re all to blame in the end,” leaves the song’s message elusive, yet the undertone of environmental concern is unmistakable present.

‘These Quiet Times’ is again a dreamy, unassuming track that may pass you by with little effect on first listen. Eventually, though, simple lines like: “I’ll catch you falling/When you least expect,” will stick with you. Lawrence Becko (lead vocals/piano/guitar) mumbles the words “these quiet times/that I like best,” with honesty and charm, while strings, subtle harmonies and minimalist, sporadic rhythms help create a lush, intimate feel. You almost think Becko is whispering to himself, and you feel honored to be privy to such personal, unadulterated musings.

Shady Bard list as their influences the likes of Grandaddy and Sigur Ros, and this is the perfect context to view them in: they’re pastoral folk-rock, like Grandaddy or Midlake, with the fullness of Sigur Ros, minus the Icelanders’ epic bent. The title track, ‘From The Ground Up’, is the most obvious of the Sigur Ros comparisons. An instrumental, the layered strings and subtle guitar effects lead to a drum-driven crescendo that would not have seemed out of place on Takk. You can’t escape the feeling that they would be far more at home playing a gig on a cold, wet, winter morning in a country field than in a seedy little pub or bar.

‘Treeology’ is a post-Radiohead, Elbow-ish track, with a strong, didactic lyrical element. As the distorted guitar makes its first appearance on the album, Becko sings of an “environmental catastrophe”, voicing frustration at an apathetic world. ‘Memory Tree’ takes the album back to the beauty of its early tracks, and Becko is even more restrained in his vocals; now singing well-and-truly under his breath. Jasmin Hollinghum’s backing vocals add a beautiful texture, and the quiet hum of the cello adds further weight to another unassuming and gorgeous pop-folk track.

I remember when Midlake’s Trials of Van Occupanther was released; I was entranced from the first listen, only to discover others found what I took to be consistency – in my mind, the essence of a record becoming an ‘album’ – to be a boring sameness. Although I can’t say Shady Bard’s debut is quite of Van Occupanther’s calibre, From the Ground Up is as assured a debut as I’ve heard, and consistent enough in its themes, instrumentation and song-craft for it to be an ‘album’ in all the word’s connotations.