The Verve, Suede, and subsequent solo satellites Richard Ashcroft and Bernard Butler gave their output weight by emphasizing moody sweep as much as musicianship. Image was never just a finely-cut Fred Perry with empty sleeves and body, but a three-dimensional muse that advised on sound and intent. This embedded difference made their albums memorable; it put pose and genre fulfillment second to songs and singularity. Runaway Found, the full-length debut from England's The Veils, derives its greatest depths from a similar well. It benefits from the even-handed lushness of co-producer Butler, and perhaps a bit of mentorship between he and head Veil Finn Andrews. But it also understands the role of pace in crafting resonance and has a gleaming diamond of the traditional model in the wail and stance of young Andrews. It's no fair: Mother England keeps birthing charismatic frontmen while America offers failed crops of bald and vengeful shoutmongers.
Runaway Found is quite a classy thing. Check the evocative, selenium-toned cover art, or even its Rough Trade imprint if that's your game. Electric guitars are rabid or echoing, depending on the moment; acoustics simmer like quiet Urban Hymns. That album's influence is apparent in the keening strings of "Wild Son", too, but it's Butler behind the board, so the instrumental layering of his solo work is a touchstone. Runaway Found illuminates, with equal patience, the hovering dust particles in the spacious "Talk Down the Girl" and the hopeful guitar bends of the upbeat "Guiding Light".
However, as dynamic as its backgrounds get, the album never defocuses from Andrews' willowy whoops and whine-- he wrote the songs, after all. For much the same reason, he can also be overdramatic, like a bruised ego poet haunting the university café. (Thom Yorke is an apparition floating in the soupy reverb and non-sequiturs of "Vicious Traditions".) "Lavinia" might have fared similarly, but instead it's one of the album's strongest points, filling five-plus roiling-sea minutes with weepy descending strings, insistent piano, and an incredible performance from Andrews that surveys the heartache and expressive power of every vocalist since Britpop's zenith.
Like Elbow's Cast of Thousands, Runaway Found shifts ably between warmth and spiny soul-searching. There's grace between its acrid smoke and strobe light flashes ("More Heat Than Light") and subtle, slightly sad builds ("Leavers Dance"). "If only you could stay and not leave me behind," Andrews whines on "Tide That Left and Never Came Back", but the song finds a balance between pain and resigned fate, tempering Andrews' sorrow and its ragged guitar breaks with happier rhythm guitar doodle and sunny supporting harmonies. It's another Butler-helmed production and seems touched with his ability to find maturity in simple textures or the folds of a shirt. Of course, there's depth to The Veils' songs. But there's no question that Runaway Found is a better album for its attention to layering and pace.
Brit-rock at mid-decade needs to take stock. Its past giants are still confidently (and rightly) influential, and more-recent comers have found inroads to bling across the pond. But in the margins there are baubles of the just-okay. They're groups that glow with talent but give off shadows shaped liked question marks. Despite its maturity, melodic strength, and direct connection to what came before, Runaway Found can't fully distance itself from the suspicion that it might just be "eh" in the long run. But The Veils prove England's version of just-okay is still better than America's gang of post-grunge blowhards, tuning their Paul Reed Smiths in astro wedgie recovery therapy.
