‘Pictures’ is the opening track of Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s debut release and it establishes the themes explored throughout the album (friendship, memory, travel, love) within a simple guitar and vocal arrangement. The orchestration becomes more elaborate as the album progresses. For ‘Box of Stones’ and ‘Snowship’ a plaintive violin expresses a sense of yearning, whilst additional voices and percussion flesh out the songs’ texture. The lyrics and the addition of a harmonium at the start of ‘1904’ recalls the seafaring theme explored on his early EPs.
Leftwich’s finger-picking skills are evident on ‘Atlas Hands’ and ‘Shine’, and their use of a strong female vocal to complement his voice mixes up the album’s format successfully. A sliding steel guitar is used judiciously for ‘Stole You Away’ but it is the squeak of strings as Leftwich’s fingers shift position on the frets of the acoustic guitar that gives the track an authentic live feel. The title track brings together the violin, female voice and finger-plucking once again but with a more dominant percussion line than has featured before. It ends with a rhetorical question to a person with a “cold heart”: “don’t you want to spend more time around here?”.
The album closes with the haunting ‘Don’t Go Slow’, which recalls the first view of a lover with heartfelt honesty. It concludes the album on a more optimistic note than what has gone before, “I’m yours tonight”. Here the finger-picking is replaced with guitar chords that are played with rhythmic emphasis as a piano provides subtle interjections. It is a deceptively-simple but engagingly visceral love song (“if my bones were wrapped around you”). Closing on this standout track is an intelligent decision: it could mark Leftwich’s transition from a promising solo artist to a mainstream success. Whatever the future holds, this is certainly an impressive debut album.
Album: Benjamin Francis Leftwich – Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm
Written by Amanda Penlington. Posted in Album
Published on July 06, 2011
‘Pictures’ is the opening track of Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s debut release and it establishes the themes explored throughout the album (friendship, memory, travel, love) within a simple guitar and vocal arrangement. The orchestration becomes more elaborate as the album progresses. For ‘Box of Stones’ and ‘Snowship’ a plaintive violin expresses a sense of yearning, whilst additional voices and percussion flesh out the songs’ texture. The lyrics and the addition of a harmonium at the start of ‘1904’ recalls the seafaring theme explored on his early EPs.
Leftwich’s finger-picking skills are evident on ‘Atlas Hands’ and ‘Shine’, and their use of a strong female vocal to complement his voice mixes up the album’s format successfully. A sliding steel guitar is used judiciously for ‘Stole You Away’ but it is the squeak of strings as Leftwich’s fingers shift position on the frets of the acoustic guitar that gives the track an authentic live feel. The title track brings together the violin, female voice and finger-plucking once again but with a more dominant percussion line than has featured before. It ends with a rhetorical question to a person with a “cold heart”: “don’t you want to spend more time around here?”.
The album closes with the haunting ‘Don’t Go Slow’, which recalls the first view of a lover with heartfelt honesty. It concludes the album on a more optimistic note than what has gone before, “I’m yours tonight”. Here the finger-picking is replaced with guitar chords that are played with rhythmic emphasis as a piano provides subtle interjections. It is a deceptively-simple but engagingly visceral love song (“if my bones were wrapped around you”). Closing on this standout track is an intelligent decision: it could mark Leftwich’s transition from a promising solo artist to a mainstream success. Whatever the future holds, this is certainly an impressive debut album.
About Amanda Penlington
Comments