After a decade-long recording hiatus, Patrick Wolf released the EP The Night Safari in April 2023. The mouth of misfortune conjured up on the song “Enter the Day” had spat him out at last and he landed in East Kent, just where he needed to be.
The London-born multi-instrumentalist, often pigeonholed as a folktronica artist, was still only 28 when his fifth LP, 2011’s Lupercalia, cracked the UK Top 40. “Things are looking up, up, up,” his sonorous voice swelled on the album closer “The Falcons”. What followed instead was a dozen fallow years that saw him battle alcohol and drug abuse, go bankrupt, get run over in Italy, and lose his mother to cancer.
Having sobered up during the pandemic, Wolf moved to the
coastal town of Ramsgate, where a quiet life of swimming, seaside runs,
gardening and the extensive exploration of the local folklore provided
him with fresh inspiration. On Crying the Neck, written,
produced and arranged by him, Wolf comes to terms with his misfortunes,
his mother’s death in particular, and declares his love for East Kent
and its lore.
Named after a ritual chant heard at the end of the harvest,
the album is defined by its contrasts – dark and harrowing, yet also
offering reassurance and hope. If you’re familiar with Wolf’s back
catalogue, the record may not feel novel in that it has all the
hallmarks of his earlier work: genre eclecticism, collaborations,
literary lyrics, and vulnerability paired with a theatrical air. But now
all that is on a larger scale. It’s almost as if, reignited by the new
beginning, his passion has grown too intense for him to contain.
A case in point is the six-minute opener, “Reculver”.
Starting out as a soft, piano-led ballad, it gets intense as soon as the
strings come in and, with guitars and drums added, the pace steadily
picks up. Around the two-minute mark the song gives you the tantalising
promise of a club banger, only to slow down for a while before turning
into a barn dance, eventually segueing into what would be a calming coda
if it wasn’t for the 50-second outro of programmed synthesizer chugs.
Phew! ‘Less is more’ is not the artistic motto Wolf lives by. In fact,
his creative impulses unchecked, he occasionally overreaches.
That
is not to say that the outcome as a whole is disappointing whenever he
goes for a grand, expansive sound. Rather, the subtle, delicate parts
are cancelled out by overblown ones. Take “Dies Irae”, an imaginary last
conversation with his late mother. It shines brightest in its last ten
seconds when, with the drum programming and all other instruments having
fallen by the wayside, only his precious strings keep Wolf company as
he sings “Take this moment / You’ll always have home in it / The time is
here”. It’s a beautiful, heart-rending ending. What made him think that
the song needed a chorus that sounds like Coldplay at Eurovision is a
mystery.
All of Crying the Neck’s finest moments come when
Wolf relies only on his voice and a chamber string ensemble, or even
just some bells, as on “Song of the Scythe”. He soars on the swirling
hymn “The Curfew Bell”, which ends with a gorgeous string passage that
would make Schubert envious, and the captivating “Hymn of the Haar” has
his full register on display. The way his baritone lifts on the lines
“Crisis to crisis / Life needn’t be like this / Or must it and must I /
Be oblivious nor ask why?” is magical.
Minimalism works best in the lyrics, too. The poignant
“Stare at the past too long / To there you’ll disappear” on “Oozlum” and
the stoic yet sceptical “The healing comes with admitting, I hear” on
the layered “Jupiter” use only a few simple words. But Wolf often gets
obscure and verbose. On “Hymn of the Haar” alone you have ‘restharrow’,
‘scansion’, ‘spindrift’, ‘blugloss’, ‘samphire’ and ‘plover’ – can you
pick out the plants? While this is in keeping with the concept of paying
tribute to his new-found home, it is at odds with the hackneyed moments
such as the ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh choruses on “Dies Irae” and “Limbo”, a
spirited but uneven collaboration with Zola Jesus.
That said, Wolf remains one of the most gifted and
uncompromising artists of his generation. It’s great to have him back. A
few weeks shy of his 42nd birthday, he’s at the peak of his powers, and
Crying the Neck finds him getting into his stride again. If he reins in his excesses, he may be in full flight on its follow-up.
