There’s always been something haunting and darkly gothic about the brooding folk of Manchester’s Last Harbour. A band out of step and out of time when it comes to fashions and trends, they’ve forged a career that stands apart from any obvious musical currents, taking a measured approach to all aspects of their songwriting and recording.
Having elected to break from producer Richard Formby (Wild Beasts, Spacemen 3, Ghostpoet) who worked with on two previous albums, the band decided to construct their own studio in 2013, with ‘Caul’ being meticulously arranged and recorded in this new custom-made space. The result is an album that sees Last harbour spreading their horizons without losing sight of the dark, stark contrasts and brooding style that defined their previous work.
A sombre piano and mournful strings wash over the instrumental introduction that prefaces ‘Fracture-Fragment’, and K. Craig first enunciates in his heavy baritone that invites comparisons to Nick Cave and Michael Gira. He croons bleakly of constellations and concepts of infinite space and depth with the resonance of henry Miller and without sounding pompous.
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A blankly intonated, almost spoken word narrative verse yields to a grand sweeping chorus on ‘Guitar Neck’, while bleak urban scenes filter through the whirling tempest of ‘Before the Ritual’ before coming on like 70s David Bowie.
K. Craig conjures black and white visuals with his voice alone. Jolts of noise and stormy crescendos build epic drama in places, while elsewhere, as on ‘The Deal’, dark atmospherics lurk around a hypnotic rhythm.
The album flows perfectly, and the sequencing again reflects Last Harbour’s attention to detail and the moods and textures transition. It all makes for an album that’s refined and considered, tense and dramatic, and possesses moments of breathtaking beauty and sedate intensity.
Last Harbour Online
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