Both Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan became very popular thirty years after their greatest works were released. Let’s not delay our appreciation of Lucy Kitchen, whose third album In the Low Light comes with the same warning as Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell: ensure tear-mopping material is nearby, as your eyes are likely to leak.
Kitchen wrote the album after the death of her husband from cancer in 2022. She said: “Some of these songs began as tiny poems…with no intention or pressure to turn them into songs… but over time some of them found their melody.” Did you hear that? ‘Found their melody.’ Pass me that hankie, please…
‘Winter King’ sounds like a fairytale with a Pink Floyd solo, and it contains the refrain “if only you were here” – the universal plea of the bereaved. Don’t be swayed by the country swing of ‘In My Corner’ – this is no invitation to have a darn good time in the line dance. “Baby I’m trying to be stronger / Trying to live how we talked about.” Ouch, my heart! “I miss you in my corner / Telling me I’m the one.” I’m not crying – we’re crying.
On ‘The Ways We Were’, outrageously beautiful violin weaves in between lovely arpeggios, and Kitchen hits the high notes as effortlessly as the angels. On ‘Olivia’, she throws her loving arms around someone else. Her consoling voice is front and centre, and more heavenly harmonies sail above relentless yet lightly picked guitar. ‘Blue Light’ has the gentle, swooning air of Richard Hawley at his most 50s gorgeous. “Last night I dreamt of you dear / We were like we used to be / But baby you’ve gone / Into the blue light.” I can’t see through these tears, which is a problem, as there are still another six songs to review.
Imagine you are dressed in your finest, dancing with the love of your life at the end of the promenade under the stars. A quartet plays and you are convinced this is the best moment of your life, because that is exactly what it is. Well, that’s what ‘Milk and Honey’ is like. ‘Sunny Days’ includes Bryter Later-era flute and could not sound more like 1971 if it tried. Woodstock is still a water cooler moment, and decimalisation is still giving shopkeepers and the elderly a headache.
‘Red Skies’, a single released last summer, is a ‘country shuffle’ that makes simple pleasures seem like enormous gifts. “Do you wanna go out drinking? / I know it’s only Tuesday night.” Weekday shandies taste all the better for rebelling against convention. However, don’t be too smug, as the next track on the album is ‘Chemo Song’. If the twinkling guitar doesn’t get you, the lyrics will. “I love him so / I’m not ready to let him go.” Right, everyone, it’s a lock in. No one’s leaving till our lacrimals are dribbling whiskey.
‘The Boatman’ is equal parts resignation and hope. None of us really want to be lost in an eternal nothingness, but if it means we’re closer to our departed loved ones, then bring on the pitch black – there’s light if we look. “Take me down to the riverside / Lay me out and let my bones dry / I will see you on the other side” – sung with the calm determination of someone signing a mortgage contract. On album closer ‘September Comes’, accompanied by just an acoustic guitar and her own harmonies, Kitchen sings, “I’m full of songs / They’re pouring out my blood.” September was the month in which her husband passed.
It’s trite to say that grief is a muse, but In the Low Light is a stunning reminder that pain can prompt the most beautiful art. Such creations can never replace what we’ve lost, but articulating the absence makes the heart stronger, if only slightly. Grab your hankie, hold onto your loved ones, and then go and see Lucy Kitchen.
1st March – Heartbreakers, Southampton (full band album launch show)
12th March – Cafe #9, Sheffield
14th March – Music Room, London (full band show)
3rd April – Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
In the Low Light is out now on Bohemia Rose Records / Make My Day Records
Lucy Kitchen: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Review by Neil Laurenson
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