Hannah Frances: Nested in Tangles review – ramshackle arrangements power restless revelations
Hannah Frances’s exhilarating sixth album is an unruly ecosystem: nature sprawls, resurfaced family trauma unearths “unrevealed roots”, an unexpected rupture creates fertile ground for new understandings to blossom. The deep steadiness of the Vermont songwriter’s previous album, last year’s Keeper of the Shepherd, is replaced by ramshackle clusters of kindling-snap drums, nervy woodwind, jabbing brass, all swarming together like a cloud of bees. Her awkwardly beautiful chord changes evoke ornate wood carvings; her tempos are always wayward.
The showstopper is Life’s Work, a runaway quest about her hunger to vanquish resentment, blame and anger, the tumbling metre of the lyrics unspooling as if pulling at an endless ball of wool. “Learning to trust in spite of it is life’s work,” she declares, as a trumpet tries to keep pace with her. Surviving You makes clear that it’s not so easy: “There’s nothing more to give toward forgiveness / When there is no willingness to understand,” she sings. Her vocal harmonies are layered crudely, the feeling queasy and trapped by frustration; the rhythm suddenly becomes pendulous and guitar, sax and synths squall on the attack.
The detail in the songs feels like someone tilling the earth, turning over every rock and grain to see what revelation it might yield. Falling from and Further wonders whether it’s better to feel pain or forget it in order to move on, trying out the different possibilities in the guise of country balladry, dissonant woodwind and kicking up dust. It’s a restless record that commands attentive listening, the absolute clarity of Frances’s songwriting voice standing tall as the leaves bluster around her.
