ALBUM REVIEW: Hiding In Plain Sight – Herin
After an eight-year absence, TILES guitarist, Chris Herin, has released his debut solo record Hiding In Plain Sight under the moniker HERIN. The release itself is a concept album about Herin witnessing his father’s long ten-year struggle with Alzheimer’s, with each song going over different thoughts, emotions and events during this time. It’s a journey that has been filled with moments of sadness and grief, yet at the same time has been a time to reflect on the more beautiful, precious moments of life: trying to remember his father as he was.
The songs, seemingly in chronological order of events, are within the genre of blues rock with some jazz undertones, along with alternative rock sections as seen in opening track Warning Signs that draws slight comparison to THE EAGLES. Meanwhile songs like The Darkest Hour and White Dandelions bring in orchestral elements with the use of saxophones that helps us visualise a jazz club scene, although White Dandelions might be more accurate in creating an image of HERIN making decisions around his father’s funeral and memorial, all the way down to the smaller details of buying the flowers to one day lay on his grave and to decorate the wake.
As mentioned, the album goes between emotions where one moment we share HERIN’s grief and sadness, and then in the next moment we find ourselves happy and nostalgic as he reminisces on positive memories between him and his father. And the latter moments result in some of the prettiest songs you’ll ever hear, such as Living In The Night, a slower track that is as melancholic as it is sweet, and Slow To Crumble, an upbeat track.
Both songs seem to be an ode to the more happier times HERIN spent with his father and we share in that nostalgia. It serves as a reminder to us, and resonates heavily with those of us who know that when comes to an illness like Alzheimer’s, that it’s important for us to hold onto the memories of who the person was. Who they truly are.
Yet in direct contrast, when we move into the stages of grief and sadness, we have tracks that leave you heartbroken, especially if you’ve lost someone in a similar way and understand every emotion he’s going through. Second Ending best illustrates this as, to those who’ve experienced the effects of Alzheimer’s, know that the illness has two deaths: the day you’re diagnosed and start to forget who you are, and the day you pass away, where those around you will have already experienced the grief of losing the person they love.
A beautifully heart-breaking record that accurately captures the harder days, and yet still celebrates who his father was. There is no finer tribute.
Rating: 8/10
Hiding In Plain Sight is out now via The Lasers Edge.
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