The Devil's Door. And Also The Trees

Search and you will find two albums by And Also The Trees on this blog, 'Untangled (An Introduction To)' and 'The Bone Carver'. With The Devil's Door a third is added. Put it on and you are pulled into a listening session that is somewhere between 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles' and late night jazz in a smoky club from decades ago.

And Also The Trees started out as a post punk band in the U.K. in 1984. As I wrote before, I've missed it all at the time. Early in its career the band supported The Cure. In 2026 it will once again for three shows in June in Nîmes, so I suppose in the famous Roman theatre there. Full circle, but with a beautiful album on its hands. If post punk is hiding somewhere in The Devil's Door, it is in how the lead guitar plays here and there, but certainly not in the music as a whole.

The Devil's Door is a moody affair, a serious album of epic proportions. The band has not held back to make its latest album sound huge and impressive. Not by hiring a symphony orchestra, no, by putting a lot of attention into detail and atmospherics. Full use was made of synths and (weird) sounds to support the songs. Just listen to how the instrumental song 'Rooftops' plays out. So deceptively relaxed, yet so full of tension.

Singer Simon Huw Jones croons with his darkish voice. Moving through the songs like a snake, slow yet very deliberate. Not unlike Nick Cave I realise. Jones' voice has a lighter though. Together with Justin Jones, guitar, Paul Hill, drums, Grant Gordon, bass and Colin Ozanne, clarinet and various, Jones has created a jazzy environment in which it is good to dwell.

If I had to compare this music further, I can only come up with Tindersticks. Now I have never liked this band, so I could be wrong. Where Tindersticks fails my ears, And Also The Trees pulls me into its new album by the song until it takes over all else in my mind. Simon Huw Jones sings slow. He takes his time to share his lyrics with us. You can see him in that late night jazz club, crooning into the microphone, cigarette between his fingers, smoke curling up in the spotlight aimed at him. Totally having become one with the music, oblivious of all else, in the club and elsewhere.

The Devil's Door manages to create this illusion for the whole of the album. The band plays so subtle, supporting the singer, place an accurate accent here and there and taking short spots in the limelight in the moments without lyrics. Song by song the album delivers.

The rolling drums, the eastern European feel in the way strings and notes played in 'Shared Fate' closes the album in a great way. The song takes me far away from home. And when the album automatically starts playing again, I realise that opening song 'The Silver Key' has that same feel. It makes The Devil's Door a European album and far from British. An album of mesmerising beauty to cherish.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

 

You can listen to and order The  Devil's Door here:

https://andalsothetrees.bandcamp.com/album/the-devils-door