North East outfit Amateur Ornithologist’s third album, ‘Hide’, is crafted between a host of new band members and a raft of regional collaborators, amid a multi-instrumentalist storm of concepts and finely crafted arrangements sounding luscious enough to sink your teeth into.
‘A Hidden Path’ opens proceedings unusually and distinctively, with Daniel Clifford’s distinctive and characterful vocal washing over a sun-dappled backdrop of prog-folk. While frequently poppy in their harmonic set-ups, these ten tracks are twisting in their ideas, with which each song is jam-packed.
The presence of viola, sax and a brilliantly utilised synth sheen throughout situate a true folk-prog offset above a traditional rock unit, with deviating guitar and balmy, expressive bass propelling ‘Time To Talk’, with a subtly operating catchiness.
The band are comfortable across varied turns of pace, time signatures and genres, traversing chamber pop (‘I Won’t Be Waiting’), orchestral folk, Latin rhythms (‘The Word Is Love’), psychedelic indie-pop (‘If It Looks Like Magic’) and eerie art-folk (‘Venetian Blinds’), with lyrics taking in mysticism, nature, banality, life and death across an assortment of thoughtfully handled subjects and stories.
You can listen to ‘Hide’ now on all major streaming platforms.
