There's something very rundown about the music Thomas Meluch makes under his Benoît Pioulard alias. Not just in its emotional content-- although there are plenty of allusions to shattered dreams and ruined love-- but also in the way it's executed. He's never really moved beyond a preference for dust-caked tape recordings, often causing him to come across as a doomed romantic slowly disappearing into his own reflection. It's an illusion, of course, but one that Meluch has become truly accomplished in executing. Hymnal sees him walking along a familiar faultline, but like his prior albums, particularly the exemplary Lasted, there are a few new crevices to explore. In particular, this record was inspired by Meluch taking up residency in the southeast of England, and his resultant exploration of the religious iconography he discovered both there and on mainland Europe. It lends Hymnal a ceremonial air, culminating in an imposing instrumental drone piece that blackens the center of the album.
In 2011 Meluch put out a release for Desire Path titled Plays Thelma, mostly based around beatless drone pieces. It opened up a strain of thought this record occasionally capitalizes on, particularly when he dips into work such as the barely existent "Censer". But that's only half the story, as Meluch can't resist returning to the kind of fine-spun emoting he's better known for, splitting Hymnal somewhere between campfire warmth and ice-cold shivers. It's a combination that may sound jarring, but ends up working quite seamlessly with his firm hand moving all the parts into place. Meluch can even get away with tying a Simon & Garfunkel glow to Robert Kirby-inspired strings on "Litiya", and then segueing the whole composition into an actual recording of church bells on the following "Knell". The latter is his most literal nod toward the religious emblems that inspired him. Elsewhere it's deployed with greater subtlety, such as the ecclesiastical air that floods into the echoing passages of "Florid".
The air of disquiet that seeps in forms loose ties between Hymnal and other recent artists who've explored the inherent creepiness in the rolling hills of the English countryside. This album doesn't share many aesthetic ties with Julian House's work in the Focus Group, but it does share a sense of things not quite being right, of an ostensibly idyllic place suddenly revealing danger. Pitchfork's Larry Fitzmaurice discussed the resemblance of Meluch's work to "aged film footage" in his review of Lasted; here it's often reminiscent of an old Public Information Film, depicting the entire world as a place loaded with potentially lethal mishaps at every turn. It's there in the eerie piano runs of "Homily" and it's there in the wonky tape intros that beckon in "Excave" and "Margin". Meluch heightens the tension by stacking these tracks up against sunnier fare like "Hawkeye" and the Elliott Smith homage of "Reliquary", lulling you into a false sense of security before pockmarking you in goosebumps.
Hymnal is most definitely the type of album that has a centerpiece around which the rest of the album flows, and when it comes-- titled "Gospel", strategically placed as the sixth out of 12 tracks-- it looms over everything that comes before and after. It's an instrumental work, and one that most deeply evokes the record's stated inspirations. "Gospel" again triggers strong visual cues, with drones stretching out like mist hugging the ground, decaying fingers prodding at keys to provide the track's brittle organ grind, a field recording of birds soaring into the sky to provide a form of release at its end. Certainly it's tempting to conclude that a whole album of this stuff would elevate Hymnal beyond Meluch's other works, although its rare power is at least partially derived from its standalone nature. Instead, it takes its place amid a spattering of welcome deviations that exist here, all lodged in a subtly different type of ruin.
