REVIEW: Blackwater Lightship’s latest EP, ‘Last Night I Saw The Leaves Fall’
Alt-rock Sheffield duo Blackwater Lightship return on the heels of their debut single ‘The Places Where We Go’ with a mammoth, almost album length, EP titled Last Night I Saw The Leaves Fall.
The duo have really hit the ground running here too; each of the collection’s five tracks is its own intricately crafted sonic world of interwoven guitar lines and complex, driving drum grooves. There’s a compelling answer to the question “What if Suede’s Brett Anderson fronted The National?” on ‘The Places Where We Go’ which, in a great choice of track sequencing, saves the most ragged notes in singer Leon Lockley’s upper register for the project’s climatic moments. Very much on the other side of things stylistically, ‘Evening Star’ pairs a gorgeous Richard Hawley-esque melody with a loose, live-feeling instrumental; it’s the kind of music you’d expect to hear in the diner in a David Lynch film.
Lyrically the duo, completed by drummer Tom Roberts, have a real knack for making the most of a simple phrase without having it overstay it’s welcome. On the chorus of ‘City Lights’ Lockley sings “I wait for the sun to rise/Get a coffee and one atomised life to go” in one long, descending motion, resisting the urge to focus in on any one phrase in the service of giving the song an easy rhythmic fluidity that slots around the instrumentation. There’s a really interesting juxtaposition going on, not just through the lyrics, but throughout the whole project here too. On one hand there’s the pastoral imagery on ‘Evening Star’ and the twangy folk instrumentation on ‘The Standing Man’ placing the songs in an almost out-of-time rural landscape, all country lanes and clear skies of stars. On the other hand, however the duo craft neon-lit, nocturnal sonics with the post-punk guitars of ‘Over & Out’ and ‘The Places Where We Go’; it sounds like the city and it’s cold, stark nights.
Whilst Roberts and Lockley have both previously played in other bands, that this is the work of such a recently formed group is seriously impressive. There’s a real confidence to both the expansiveness of the arrangements here and way in which Lockley leans into the versatility of his voice to suit each song. The shift from the vocals of ‘City Lights’ to ‘Evening Star’ really does sound like the work of a different vocalist altogether and helps prove early on in the project that duo aren’t interested in simply staying in one lane. A highly promising debut EP and the arrival of a band to watch.
Words: Sam Wilkinson
