Hearing Richard Hawley backed by an orchestra is heavenly. Hearing it while sober and not two bottles of rosé wine deep, is even better. You can do the latter with this effort from the Lady’s Bridge legend, where he and the Philharmonic Orchestra perform some of his very best works. Nineteen glorious tracks with some overblown and overbearing strings. Yet Hawley cuts through. The Philharmonic Orchestra is not here to rise to the occasion or serve the songs and their subtleties but to create a crashing bed of strings for Hawley to leap from, to escape. He tries and tries, with some sounding as masterful as they do live, while others are drowned out by the louder-than-life orchestral moments. A fine blur, a fascinating performance which elicits those brass band and orchestral appearances in the years to follow this release.
Closer Leave Your Body Behind You is as clear an example of this overdone orchestral sense. Wild and riveting strings better adapted to the high drama of an opera than a guitar-heavy crunch of personable afflictions put to song. Songs which seem inevitably better suited to the orchestra, like the preceding track The Ocean, succumb to the attention placed on the string section also. Pull it back to the front where Jarvis Cocker introduces the show, where obvious pieces like Open Up Your Door and Coles Corner can be found. Wonderful, nothing short of wonderful. “You are in for a treat,” Cocker keeps saying. He is half correct. The treat comes from hearing how Hawley adapts to the operatics, the sense of change in these songs. Remorse Code and all those Truelove’s Gutter songs sound spectacular with the orchestra backing them, even if it does feel a tad overbearing at times. What it serves above all is a chance to hear some works which have slipped from the live set and are unlikely to return.
Pieces like Run For Me are wonderful additions. They feel a tad too twee, but such is the case of overloading an orchestra with a plainer sense. Live experiences will always bring on a better case for Hawley being paired with these orchestrals – it has worked in the past and it will work again. Perhaps it is the lack of brass. Simpler songs which depend not on the instrumentals but on the vocal power Hawley still holds, like For Your Lover Give Some Time, are blown out of the subtle proportions they had. Orchestral attempts are never a disaster when the vocal sense is still there, and the Philharmonic Orchestra still holds firm, especially on set two.
Hawley and the orchestra catapult him into a place his music has rarely returned, in the studio, that is. His powers as a vocalist and instrumentalist are for cranking the amp up to its loudest volume, or for stripping it back and honing acoustic beauties. What it does not quite bring to the table is a sense of reflection – as Soldier On once had. Even the string sections it adapts from the album feel too big, far too overbearing for the song. Still a fun experience, a fine listen where Hawley can cut through with his strong songwriting and brilliant voice. This is the beauty of a Hawley performance – the quality of his work tends to cut through irrespective.
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