White Heath -‘Take No Thought For Tomorrow’ (Electric Honey)
White Heath first made their presence felt two years ago, with the excellent The Sea Wall EP. It was an excellent release -self-released at that – which suggested that White Heath were capable of big things. And they have more than delivered with this, their debut album.
Opening track ‘Maker’ shows hints of jazz and classical as it builds towards its finish. There’s also hints of an epic classical feel on the closing ‘So.’ Fantatsic bookenders for the album -and if one of these boys ends up scoring soundtracks at any point, i wouldn’t be surprised.
Although all four songs that made up their debut release appear here, they appear much more self-confident and mature. Listening back to the EP now (which I still do) those versions seem much less sure of themselves by comparison. First single ‘GG’ is also much improved on earlier versions that circulated.
Given the gorgeous instrumentation, and awesome use of both strings and brass, I daresay some lazy fools will draw comparisons with another Edinburgh band now onto their sophomore album. Fools! This album is astonishing, full stop. But it is all the more amazing when you consider that it is a debut. Given that some of the bands whose careers have started with Electric Honey have gone onto achieve great things (keep up! Biffy, Belle and Sebastian and Snow Patrol), it would be a travesty on this evidence White Heath did not follow suit.
****1/2
Take No thought For Tomorrow is released physically on June 4 on Electric Honey.
GG’ is available as a free download.
Election Day by Jim Sutherland