- Album: 'How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow'
- Label: 'Balloon Ranger Recordings'
- Genre: 'Pop'
- Release Date: '30.1.20/27.11.20'
Our Rating:
As Ane Brun has just started her 20th anniversary European tour it's about time I caught up and reviewed the two albums she put out in 2020, After The Great Storm and How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow. Ane is a Norwegian singer songwriter who has been based in Stockholm Sweden since 2001. The two album were released in October and November of 2020 telling the story of what it feels like to lose the one you love the most. These are two incredibly sad and beautiful albums.
After the great storm opens with Honey that has a gentle ambient dance pop feel to it as Ane's cautious vocals tell her Honey all the ways that she adores them and wants them around.
After The Great Storm has restrained percussion and Ane's vocals that in places sound like Mari Boine as the strings sweep through like the waters subsiding.
Don't Run And Hide keeps the deeply mystical Nordic feel, as she pleads that you don't run away and leave her. The strings give this a semi classical chilled out heartbreak feel to let your sorrow envelop you.
Crumbs is gently evocative, perfect for some red wine as you realize that you won't fall for his games again. Feeling Like I Wanna Cry is a perfect song title for the 2020's as the pain and sorrow of modern living has become too much to take, set against atmospheric ambient synths with subtle strings.
Take Hold Of Me opens with almost spoken word vocals that evoke a fragile Bjork like figure as the synths and strings build around the vocal line.
Fingerprints sounds like a 70's sweet soul heartbreaker of a ballad as the strings make you well up as you reflect on everything that now haunts your dreams, about what went wrong, as Ane makes clear just how much she misses you.
The Waiting the wondering what you'll do with your time, now your no longer with her, listening to the squiggly percussive elements and synths pulling at your heart strings.
The Album closes with We Need A Mother as she pleads for far more human decency that she sees, as she asks us all to pull together and work together to improve things, as the ululating synths and strings have echoes of Hedningarna's sparsest songs as she searches for some real leadership in these troubled times.
How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow opens with the haunting Last Breath an elegiac fragile song of disbelief that your nearest and dearest is no more, sepulchral piano and strings set the mournful tone beautifully, to open one of the saddest albums I've heard for a very long time.
Closer has a haunted sadness to the carefully sung vocals and slow deliberate piano part as this taps into what I guess must be Ane's own personal sorrow, as well as the sorrow of our times.
Song For Thrill & Tom is a harp led song of love and desolation as a choir of angles accompany you on that final journey into oblivion, building slowly evoking downbeat heartbreak with every note.
Meet You At The Delta is a sparing eulogy for her lost lover whose floating down that river towards the final Delta as this album really tugs at the heartstrings amid all the heartbreak.
Trust will be earned in amongst the gorgeous strings as she can still sense your hand in hers, still holding onto that feeling no matter what.
Gentle Wind Of Gratitude is for anyone suffering loss and heartache, for those enveloped by sorrow to come together helping each other to find a way back to happiness.
Breaking The Surface is based around a gently strummed acoustic guitar and more of Ane's crystal clear vocals hoping for a breakthrough to find a purpose once more.
Lose My Way features special guest Dustin O'Halloran from Devics on Piano, whose slow sad tones color in one more sad reflection on life going wrong, with all the desolation of being left alone, when you always thought you would be the one to go first.
The album closes with Don't Run And Hide (Piano Version) as Ane lets us know she'll be here for you, no matter what, despite her all encompassing sorrow, she'll pull through finding the way to carry on, stripped of the strings on the version on After the great Storm this hits all the emotional buttons even harder.
Find out more at http://anebrun.com/ https://www.facebook.com/anebrunofficial https://music.apple.com/se/album/after-the-great-storm/1536058335 https://music.apple.com/se/album/how-beauty-holds-the-hand-of-sorrow/1540218244 https://www.ginza.se/product/brun-ane/after-the-great-storm-green-/26066/ https://www.ginza.se/product/brun-ane/how-beauty-holds-the-hand-red-/25821/
