Ben Howard – Every Kingdom (2011)

When I had just moved to London, I found quite a few good folk artists that I hadn't heard of before. Many of those artists were just releasing their debut albums, maybe inspired by the success of Mumford & Sons. I was glad to see so many good singer-songwriters emerging at the time. However, there's one problem with many of these artists. If they gained recognition with their debut album, they more often than not got sucked into mainstream record labels and as a result their authentic acoustic sounds changed into awfully produced commercial sounds that usually included completely irrelevant electronic instruments as well. This is kind of what happened to Ben Howard on his later albums. This debut album of his is still a great folk album that deserved the buzz it got at the time of its release.



I remember first learning about Ben Howard through Spotify's playlists. I listened to some ready-made folk lists where his music was a regular appearance and also his music found its way quite quickly to the playlists with songs suggested based on other artists I listened to as well. Then I remember shopping in Fopp, a local record shop here in London, and I saw the album with a cheap price with any other purchase, so I bought it. This was just around the time when Ben Howard's second album was coming out. I eagerly listened to that second album as well, but it wasn't at all what I had liked with the debut album, which made me kind of lose interest in his music. As a result, I haven't been listening to this album nearly as much as I probably should've. Now that I'm listening to it, it sounds really good.

The album starts with easygoing picking of an acoustic guitar in the song Old Pine. The song grows bit by bit with more and more instruments coming in. There's a similar echoey and dreamy mood in the song as in many other folk artists' songs around this time. I'm especially reminded of James Vincent McMorrow, who also failed to make another good album after his debut. Diamonds starts with quite a dark and ominous melody that turns completely on its head in the chorus where quite upbeat melodies emerge. The Wolves has a more steady tempo and rhythmic elements rise to a bigger importance. I really like the sounds of the song. Everything brings the volume and tempo down again. There are some excellent guitar tricks in this song including harmonics. I like how much space Howard's vocals have in this song. Only Love has almost a groovy beat that takes maybe a bit too much of the focus in the song, because the vocal melody is a bit boring. This song sounds perhaps like there's too much focus on showing off with the sounds with the expense of songwriting. The Fear paces up the tempo. The melody reminds me of some Eurovision songs, which I don't know if it's a good thing or not. Keep Your Head Up gets quite intensive and despite of its great folky instrumentation in the beginning, this sounds more like a modern pop song. Black Flies is a really quiet and dark song, which I really like. It gives more space to the vocals and it has this beautifully ominous feel to it. Gracious continues with dark and folky style which I really like. This is one of the most authentically folky songs on the album. The album ends with Promise that's one of the slowest and atmospheric songs on the album. In addition to the echoes, part of the atmosphere is created by nylon string guitar.

I like seeing music videos for debut albums, because they're usually just supporting the songs rather than taking all the glory with special effects. The music video for Old Pine shows Ben Howard walking in the nature with reddish light of the sun on him. He's walking in beautiful English countryside in the coast and sings the song. The waves in the sea fit really well to the song's mentality. You can really see his enthusiasm for making music videos in this one.

I have quite a few debut albums from artists like Ben Howard and I'm kind of sad to notice that I tend to forget about these artists if they only make that one good album. I wish the record companies would encourage musicians to stay on the path where they started a bit more, because that's what made them special in the first place. Now what usually happens is that they make everyone sound exactly the same by studio techniques and as a result the artists become uninteresting. Ben Howard's Every Kingdom is a good debut album and a great example of early 2010 new folk wave.

Listen to the album on Spotify.