Dearly Departed Album Review

I’ve got a hunch that the new Bannerman album, Dearly Departed, is going to be played a lot in my house.  From the first track I was hooked on the richness of the album, the layers of sound, the songwriting, the melancholy yet whimsical tone of the songs.  It’s hard not to lay on the accolades; I couldn’t find a single thing to fault and so this is going straight into my list of best albums for 2011.

Bannerman is the creation of one Richard Setford, accompanied by five other musicians on the album (and 4 others when performing live), yet at times it seems as though you’re listening to twice that many, as the sound layers upon itself, swells as the brass section come in, dropping back to just strings and rhythms.   Setford has done a fantastic job of creating music landscapes, populating them with characters springing from his mind, telling their stories not just through his lyrics but through the orchestration too.

At times I was reminded of Beirut (on The Howling Wind), sometimes of Chris Isaak, and throughout the album of fellow Auckland outfit Avalanche City, yet it never draws more on more than fleeting fragments of each of those.

Dearly Departed is the soundtrack to slow walks in the late autumn sun, through forests as the afternoon sun flares through the trees shedding their leaves.   Let it be your soundtrack too.