Last April [LP]

The Declining Winter - Last April [LP]

Limited edition classic black vinyl mini-album of cathartic slowcore by The Declining Winter, the new vehicle of Richard Adams, formerly of Domino Records post-rockers, Hood ''Its limited palette of spindly acoustic guitar and banks of waterlogged strings is a strong vessel for Adams' hushed voice. Six songs, each of a piece, each sodden with an earthy, drowsy melancholy'' UNCUT (UK) The next release on the acclaimed boutique English independent label, Second Language Music, will be 'Last April,' the new mini-album by The Declining Winter, a raw, deeply emotional monument of loss, grief and heartbreak that treads in the footsteps of Red House Painters' 'Down Colorful Hill,' Low's 'I Could Live In Hope' and Songs: Ohia's 'Didn't It Rain.' This is not a heart-on-your-sleeve record. It does away with the sleeve and goes straight for carving a heart on the arm. Recordings which emerged out of a period of shock, grief and trauma, these six songs were all written on the same night and form a stately tribute to a loved one lost. The Declining Winter strip things back to just Richard Adams' plaintive voice and acoustic guitar, alongside the beautiful, irrefutably melancholy string arrangements/playing of Sarah Kemp (Brave Timbers). There's been no attempt to plane off any rough edges - here and there, the creak of a chair, a guitar note missed, a voice almost cracking with emotion - these recordings are like cathartic scrawls in a diary. Only this one has been left out for anyone to read. As with his previous band, Hood, Adams has a way of evoking a particularly pastoral, English melancholy, of lonely morning hikes in inclement weathers, of rain on slate in the West Yorkshire streets where he was raised and still lives. A1. Eyes On Mine A2. Last April A3. Lime Tree House B1. Mother's Son B2. My Greatest Friend B3. August Blue