Hayden Thorpe - Ness

Most notably, ‘Ness’, the third solo album from former Wild Beasts frontman Hayden Thorpe, is not a record which can be easily divorced from its context: namely using the words and narrative of Robert Macfarlane’s 2019 book of the same name about Orford Ness, a former nuclear testing site on the Suffolk coast. At its best, this allows Hayden to delve into cinematic territory, such as in the (melo)dramatic ‘WTF Is That’, or ‘As’, where Hayden and collaborator Kerry Andrew’s vocals tangle around both each other and a carefully introduced clarinet to mesmeric effect. ‘It’, too, charms in a similar way, contrasting easy listening sounds with uneasy arrangement. On the other hand, what one must assume is a key phrase from the original text – the repeated titular refrain of ‘Song Of The Bomb’ – is delivered in a manner so pointed it falls into cringe (and the way in which the motif reappears later in ‘V.’ suggests this was unintentional). For all Hayden does well in recreating the ebb and flow of storytelling – the use of spoken word; introducing electronic elements in later tracks as to echo the narrative of technological advancement – the literary heft of the record leaves slim pickings for pure listening. The familiarity of the vocal line on ‘He’ provides a satisfactory hook, ‘She’ is dreamy and melancholy, while ‘In The Green Chapel’ combines Hayden’s still-unmistakeable vocal with a softly-plucked guitar line that bears similarity to New Order’s ‘True Faith’. And so while the record’s intention may not be memorability, it does provide its earworm.