Nick Hudson follows up his acclaimed album Kanda Teenage Honey with a collection of “love songs to the very notion of love itself”. Recorded in Tbilisi, Georgia and here in the UK On The Eve Of Hope is an album surrounded by protests and rising authoritarianism yet it is an album that finds a unique strength and beauty in choosing hope when it would so easy to choose despair.
Hope is a hard word to fathom. In some minds it could be seen as a blind faith and absence of actual action, in others it is as strong as steel and is the central element to their plans to change the world as they see it. Hope can be comforting yet it can also be a cause of melancholy as it is so easy to feel it being chipped away. One hour of doom scrolling on your phone can see your hope disappearing out of the window and into the gutter. Artistically, hope can also be a challenge to capture as some may choose an overtly positive approach that can be seen as twee or naive (please can we have no more celebrity covers of Imagine) which can trigger an opposite sensation in the listener/viewer/reader, leading to ridicule, dismissal or what the young uns refer to as “the ick”. Hope is a big subject to tackle so how does Nick Hudson choose to approach it?
Thankfully, Hudson has tackled the subject with warmth, ambition and great humour. On The Eve of Hope is the sound of an artist who is refusing to buckle under the weight of doom and uncertainty. Instead, Hudson is finding inspiration and little pockets of beauty within the chaos.
Opening in grand fashion with ‘The 1312 Overture’, On The Eve of Hope consists of eighteen songs which incorporates a myriad of keyboard instrumentation which includes ondes martinot, Soviet analogue synths, Wurlitzer electric piano and most importantly, the harpsichord. It is the latter which serves as the central anchor for the album adding a touch of regal beauty to the songs. The variety of instrumentation also gives the album a sense of dynamic time travel as songs can sound like traditional baroque pop whilst splashes of electronica keep the songs relevant to the here and now. You hear the influence of Hudson’s beloved Tori Amos throughout however the closest comparison can be found in Out of Time era R.E.M. This is most apparent on album highlight ‘Everything That Fucked Me Up Before I Was Ten’ which is a beautiful and hilarious tribute to eighties and nineties pop culture moments that anyone who grew up in those decades will connect to. This means nods to Hellraiser, T2 and Nightmare on Elm St 2. The latter inclusion is a touch of lyrical genius as Hudson ties in that film’s well-documented queer overtones with the AIDS panic and misinformation.
On The Eve of Hope also serves as a statement of queer defiance as lyrically Hudson talks about how love in the face of adversity serves as excellent training for maintaining hope even in the darkest of times. Songs such as ‘Udabno’ (about Hudson’s first ever boyfriend), ‘A Comet For Joshua’ and ‘Lazare’ all speak to the very heart of defiant love and are all delivered within a musical palette that is both unique, powerful and melodically pretty.
There is of course a need for righteous rage and artistic anger however there is also a time to cling on to the very morals that help keep us going through dark times. On The Eve Of Hope offers us a path to follow. One that is full of love, laughter, light and power. It is an album perfect for these times and in its own way, may turn out to be the best protest album you will hear this year.
Nick Hudson Bandcamp / Apple Music / Facebook / Instagram
All words by Simon Tucker
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