The Weight of the Woods <\/p>\n
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Artist: Dermot Kennedy<\/p>\n
Label: Island<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an expectation that artists will demonstrate meaningful creative growth from album to album. Dermot Kennedy<\/a> has arguably stretched that idea to the limits by making an entire record about his love of trees, as he has done with The Weight of the Woods, his creakingly portentous third LP.<\/p>\n The concept is spelt out with the cover image of the Dublin singer frowning against an ominous tree line. He has said that one of the project\u2019s inspirations is the forest behind his house, on the Dublin\u2013Kildare border. Inevitably, there is a song called Sycamore. <\/p>\n The lyrics on the title track unspool like a David Attenborough fever dream (\u201ctethered by bones tight \/ in view of that coastline\u201d). If you\u2019re not in the mood for a headlong plunge into deeply serious man woe, it won\u2019t be long before you\u2019ll have had your fill of all the chlorophyll.<\/p>\n So he\u2019s getting twiggy with it on an album that could have been titled Fir Those I Love. <\/p>\n You\u2019ve got to wonder whether Kennedy will come to regret the decision to go public with his passion for all things moss\u2011lined and decidedly deciduous. It is, after all, far too easy to joke that he has always been a bit of a wooden songwriter. Again and again across the past decade his husky, grainy voice and obvious talent for melody and arrangement have been poured into rigid power ballads that come off like Ed Sheeran<\/a> minus the fun pop bits.<\/p>\n Those flaws are blown up to supersize across the initial stretches of the album. Here we find Kennedy torn unsatisfyingly between the urge to give his audience repeat servings of the doe-eyed ditties that have made him a success and his desire to try something more experimental. (There are occasional hints of Bon Iver<\/a> and Sigur R\u00f3s.)<\/p>\n Often he tries to have it both ways, as on the listlessly solemn Refuge and Funeral. These will no doubt please the many thousands who will attend two sold\u2011out nights at the Aviva Stadium in July. But they also suggest an artist motivated largely by the desire to make new hits that sound like the old ones and unwilling to take any meaningful risks.<\/p>\n The Weight of the Woods relies heavily on Kennedy\u2019s voice, which has the unfortunate habit of lapsing into Mumford & Sons\u2011style faux sincerity. The harder he tries the more performatively earnest he sounds. <\/p>\n This is unfortunate, as he clearly means what he is singing about \u2013 mostly close encounters with heartache narrated from that weird two\u2011person perspective, as if he\u2019s crooning presumptuously on behalf of both himself and his love interest.<\/p>\n That said, the record is not quite a straight-up dud. It improves immeasurably from the mid\u2011section onwards. There\u2019s a satisfying moment of understatement on the moving piano ballad Endless. That high point is followed by a spirited and moreish attempt at sounding like mid\u2011tempo Jeff Buckley<\/a> on the wonderful Turnstile. <\/p>\n It\u2019s an excellent song that speaks to the missed opportunity that much of The Weight of the Woods represents. If only he had gone further in this direction: indie rock with a pep in its step. Instead he too often plays it safe with a landslide of Noah Kahan<\/a>\u2011style dude dirges. (It\u2019s no surprise that the album is produced by the regular Kahan collaborator Gabe Simon.)<\/p>\n