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Two classic break-up records mini-reviewed by Richard Price
Darren Hayman’s new long player Home Time (order from hefnet.com) is stripped down, rueful, and as able to get emotional torque from domestic detail as ever.
Closing the joint account, dispersing the pattern plates, admitting serious failings – it’s a classic record about breakup, a breakup from a long relationship. There’s warmth and tenderness here, charm, and a delicate use of backing / co- singers; and it’s very danceable. Hayman is still pulling melodies out of the bag and some lyrical surprises, too.
Julia Jacklin’s Crushing (on Transgressive) begins broodingly with “body” a song which begins with a devastating character sketch of a boyfriend ‘more kid than criminal’ who has ruined a romantic weekend by being caught smoking in flight. What has a kind of queasy humour to it at the beginning moves by the end of the song to profound distrust, a now ex-boyfriend who the singer fears will use intimate photographs in revenge.
Out of proportion or fair assessment? We’ll never know, but we surely do feel both the vulnerability and, especially, strength of Jacklin’s voice.
Jacklin’s ability to be so concise in articulating righteous anger at the same time as caringness, yes, of course, even for the ex-Significant Other, is another measure of Crushing’s emotional sophistication. Her lyric and musical drive make this a masterpiece of a record.
