ALBUM REVIEW: Muriel – Muriel
The self-titled debut album from Cardiff’s MURIEL is full to the brim with beautiful contradictions. This is evident straight off the bat from the cinematic intro, Blue Village, which features layered guitar loops that are both lullaby-delicate, but rise in urgency. It’s an opener that invites you to sit back and enter the world of MURIEL – something which you won’t regret doing.
Track two, Seaside Painter keeps this quiet urgency up. Frontman Zak Thomas’ vocals never break above gentle tones, but the way the chorus is repeated over and over like a mantra brings a sense of desperation to the otherwise relaxing sounds.
The desperation isn’t there in Lavender By The Frames, but the contradictions are. Finding the balance between freshness and nostalgia isn’t easy, but this track achieves it. With dreamy runaway guitar solos and vocals delivered at nearly a whisper, it’s a song so peaceful to listen to, you could swear you’ve heard it before. The lyrics paint a picture reminiscent of childhood summer holidays. They’re not quite vivid enough to tell a full tale, but descriptive enough to elicit the familiar carefree feeling.
From here though, the record takes a darker turn. Relative is a song that takes you on a journey through grief. It starts off as minimal as a track can be, with a single note rising from nothing, followed by the slow introduction of the drums and guitar before leading into echoing vocals. The lyrics tell a story in the same minimalist way, giving you a glimpse into Thomas’ life without ever becoming intrusive. But despite giving so little away, the song still manages to be sufficiently heartbreaking.
A standout track on the album is I Hope It Won’t Hurt Me. It meanders through moments of near-silence, focusing solely on Thomas’ honest and poetic lyrics to swelling instrumentals filled with emotion. Here, we are treated to the best of what MURIEL have to offer. The mixed moments of staccato strings, to haunting backing vocals and subdued cymbals, make for a song that you need to listen to multiple times to pick out everything it has to offer.
If an album can end on a cliffhanger, that is what Muriel does with Walking Just To Walk. It’s a short track that crescendos into a frantic mix of cymbals and strings before fading into quiet once again, leaving you wanting more. Though the record is only nine tracks long, it manages to establish a distinct sound for MURIEL. And if this debut is anything to go by, it is a sound that has the potential to grow and evolve into something powerful, in its own quiet MURIEL way.
Rating: 8/10
MURIEL is set for release on October 13th via Venn Records.
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