San Fransisco - Patience is a key element to true appreciation and enjoyment of music. To truly understand someone’s vision, the meticulousness and the long hours put in, and the often soul-crushing vulnerability an artist or band must overcome to present a facet of themselves to the public in artistic form, a listener must really listen to a piece of music. When we allow ourselves to dive into an album, we allow the artist or group responsible to truly speak to us. It’s not always easy – or even fun – but the reward for doing so permits a listener to actually get to know the mind of an artist. The debut LP from U.K. composers Tom Kingston and Joe Wilson – known as Solomon Grey - gives us the ability to do just that.
I first heard Solomon Grey about two years ago on Sirius XMU’s blog radio series. I was sitting in my car on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco, taking a break from an exhausting courier job, when the song “Electric Baby” came stomping out from the speakers. I was immediately taken in by the mix of punchy dance beats, gritty synths, and misty falsetto vocals. This led to the discovery of the few other songs Solomon Grey had released by that point, namely from the duo’s 2013 EP, Firechild. I continued to follow Solomon Grey’s career through the years, and had high expectations for the duo’s eventual first full-length release. The two have not disappointed; this album is a doozy.
It’s been a long and exhausting road for Solomon Grey. Tom Kingston and Joe Wilson have been playing music together for the better part of a decade, starting out as musicians in cover bands before connecting as composers and deciding to venture into their own unique and enthralling sonic frontier. Due to an exhausting illness plaguing Tom Wilson, the two relocated to Cork County, Ireland, to continue work on their material in isolation. Wilson then had to relocate permanently to the Australian Outback due to a family tragedy, where much more of the LP’s songs were written and recorded. Long drives at night, listening to demos and mixes, inspired the eventual mastering of much of the material. Upon returning to the U.K. in 2012, Solomon Grey began showcasing and releasing music in the form of several singles and EPs, some of which appeared as the soundtrack to the BBC/HBO television adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy, along with some original songs written for the series.
Eventually, the LP came together in its full form, and as a whole feels like an odyssey within itself. Each individual tone on the album tells a story all its own; the pulsing undertones of “Gascarene Sound” mimic the gray skies of Ireland churning overhead, while the rhythmic, pounding drums in the middle of closing track “Choir to the Wild” invoke the image of the cold North Atlantic coming up to meet the rocky shores of Cork County, evolving into a mystifying orchestra of humming synths and strings, like a morning fog shifting with the coastal breeze. The marked percussion and haunting vocals of “Epitaph” sound like those long drives through the Australian night, sprinkled with eerie, warped vocal samples that sound like ghosts howling in the dark unknown that surrounds them.
The entire album has a very ghostly tone to it, attributed to the ethereal vocals that permeate the LP’s twelve tracks. The duo’s influences are many, including the likes of Air, Massive Attack, and Portishead, all of whom share the same otherworldly vocal structures as Solomon Grey. Though, there are other similarities heard here, as well. On “Last Century Man,” which is one of the first songs the duo wrote together, Joe Wilson’s singing brings to mind the likes of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon – especially when he is backed up by a horn section and soft acoustic guitar – but then the song transforms into almost a completely different piece as it builds upon itself, adding sweeping percussion, electronic loops, and layer after layer of new vocal tracks that weave over and under one another like yarn on a giant loom of sound, very much in the tradition of Grizzly Bear. Even the much more upbeat “Electric Baby” boasts a somewhat supernatural atmosphere, most notably in the song’s introduction as soft, monosyllabic vocal notes bounce off one another, like the echoes of some long lost language.
The lyrics on Solomon Grey take charge in the more instrumentally subtler song “Slow Motion Picture,” which is soundtracked with melancholy piano and the occasional high-pitched shriek of distorted guitar or dulcet string sections, as the lyrics are lain on like icing, offering simple but heartfelt sentiments like “I think of you as the radio plays The Cure / You’re with me as the foot hits the floor” and the heartbreaking refrain of “The love that we had is gone / The love that you need is done / The game that we played is up.” In the album’s lead single “Sweet 84,” the lyrics take on the personal losses the band has suffered, as evident in the lines “Allow yourself, to be on your own / The images gone, from your mind” and “Give them applause for getting it right / And move along.”
Solomon Grey’s debut LP is a masterful exploration of the human experience, combing through conflicts and resolutions, hardships and resilience, love and loss. The duo has no genre, no agenda… just pure intention. It is beautifully written and produced, ushering in a new approach to music as a whole with its artful experimentation and daring honesty. After years of hard work and endless patience, they have given it to the world, and if afforded the time, Solomon Grey has the potential to speak to us all.
Solomon Grey’s self-titled LP is now available via Universal. In April, the duo will be on a short tour in the U.K. before heading to North America with Above & Beyond later this spring. For more information and tour dates head to the Solomon Grey website.
Corey Bell
Latest posts by Corey Bell (see all)
- Jagwar Ma’s ‘Every Now & Then’ is Quite the Ride - July 31, 2017
- 2 New Bands at Voodoo Music Festival Day 3 - November 4, 2016
- 5 New Bands at Voodoo Music Festival Day 2 - October 30, 2016
Pingback: Solomon Grey Proves Its Worth