The Life of Birds

The guitarist of the Beautiful South has gathered together a formidable flock of folk talent for his debut solo album, a set of acoustic, allegorical songs drawing on bird lore with a tender, involving lyricism that makes poetry out of human frailty.

Jim Causley opens and closes the album with the most Beautiful-South-sounding track on the album, ‘The Sparrow and the Thrush and the Nightingale, a caustic take on the business of music, from an ornithological point of view. Bella Hardy duets with Causley on ‘The Hummingbird on your Calendar’, while darker themes open up with ‘Sweet Forgetfulness, the French-Irish singer Camille O'Sullivan's meditation on age and memory. Eleanor McEvoy's ‘Almost Beautiful’ continues in a similar vein, with a heart-rending story of a loved-one slipping into Alzheimer's. Elsewhere there's a gloriously deep and husky set of vocals from Eliza Carthy on the fare-thee-well of ‘The Road to the South, and Kathryn Williams focuses in on ‘Crows, Ravens and Rooks’, a cautionary tale of monogamy and fleeting love, while Alasdair Roberts wraps his brackish vocals around the Gothic airs of ‘Draughty Old Fortress’, which imagines a Citizen Kane-like figure imprisoned in his isolating pile. This is perfectly formed and original acoustic folk-pop, with dobro, organ and pedal-steel guitar adding touches of Americana to the mix that Beautiful South fans will be familiar with, while lyrically it delves into mature and sombre themes that pop rarely touches on.