Held By Trees – Hinterland – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Held By Trees are a collective which came about when Talk Talk fan David Joseph imagined what it would be like if he recorded new music with musicians who had worked with Talk Talk and Mark Hollis.  The debut was very deliberately a homage to Mark Hollis, and this time around they have included his son Charlie, who plays piano on several tracks.  This follow-up is an evolution of their sound.

The album is a subtle beast, with the tracks seeming to run into each other on the first few listens.  It opens with swirling synths and tasteful guitar notes, Edge of Town. What appears to be the random rumblings of various instruments coalesce into something more substantial.  It’s an instrumental piece that sits in the territory of David Sylvian, or even Bryan Ferry’s mid-eighties material.

At times, you can hear the ghosts of prog on a series of short mood-setting interludes. The Boundary features saxophone, and the flutes on The Path are a little jarring. Later, The Snickett avoids these instruments in favour of the piano and works better.

The almost title track, Hinterland Soul, is a slow plod, opening with some ambient sounds, developing into something not a million miles away from Durutti Column’s more keyboard-based stuff before some sinister-sounding electric guitars come in, taking the track far away from so-called chillout/ambient territory.

Between States is a real headphones track.  Charlie Hollis plays some gorgeous piano, while you can hear birds in the background, with snatches of guitar before ending with twinkling blissed-out keyboards.  The Pylon Line will sound familiar to anyone who knows Laughing Stock, meandering pleasantly for six and a half minutes, leading to an enormous drone that fills out the sound before the track ends abruptly.  Boughs and Branches has an esoteric atmosphere, with creaking branches, howling keyboards and nothing much else other than occasional piano, and it rounds off the album really well.

One hell of a Sunday morning listen, and a worthy successor not only to the debut, but has also captured something of the spirit of late-period Talk Talk.