Albums of The Year # 73 Good Good Blood - At Your Mercy

 

I'm grateful to Darren Jones, regular supporter of this blog for bringing this, At Your Mercy, the latest album from Good Good Blood, to my notice. It's a haunting and resonant record, exploring territory that will be immediately familiar for anyone who's ever enjoyed a Bon Iver, Grandaddy  or Mount Eerie record but with more than enough merits of its own to deserve consideration of its own qualities.

This is not flashy, pushy music. Each track hear unfurls at its own steady pace with a sure, calm tread. It's reflective but assured, determined to forge something of beauty and value no matter how difficult the circumstances it finds itself in. As a consequence, as with the best records made by the artists mentioned above, it comes to convey spiritual, almost religious qualities.

As so often with ventures like this, Good Good Blood is essentially the project of one man. James Smith, a singer songwriter who has been putting our records for over five years. How At Your Mercy compares with other albums I cannot say as he's only just come to my notice, but if this is anything to go by I'll need to investigate his back catalogue too.

This is the second album I've heard in a couple of days after Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's s.fabulous I Made a Place that evokes nothing quite so much as the great American outback. Remarkable in this particular instance as from what I can gather Smith is actually based in North Yorkshire. Certainly you wouldn't guess, so American is the feel of what's going on here. However, as the sleeve of At Your Mercy suggests the territory this record occupies is altogether bleaker and more menacing than 'Prince' Billy's, at points venturing into Revenant territory. You get the sense at points that there's an actual battle for survival going on here.

If there's one slight criticism I'd have to make of the record it would be that the resemblance of what's going on here to the first couple of Bon Iver albums is so strong and immediate and something that the record never succeeds in shaking off while it runs its course. Nor does it really even seem to try to. Nevertheless, it's a highly involving listen and I can only thank Darren again for drawing it to my attention.