Albion
BELLA UNION
8/10
TAKE a look at the cover of Albion and you’ll see a bearded, cloaked traveller – Harp’s Tim Smith – on a bleak, snow-dappled moor, guitar held at his waist in place of a sword, an ill-advised and dangerous quest no doubt weighing heavy on his mind. It’s a brilliant, and silly, image, and yet it says something about the long journey Smith has been on since he left Midlake, the band he fronted and ostensibly led, back in 2012.
The Texans had been trying and failing to make the follow-up to 2010’s when Smith departed, fed up of it all. While 2006’s stellar had been a record that predicted much of what was to come in indie-rock over the following few years – Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver and more – was a puzzling sequel, with some fans and critics bemused by the austere pace and super-serious English folk within.
