Vestiges & Claws
Jose Gonzalez
It was Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience who gently declared that Quiet Is The New Loud on their debut album in 2001. And Swedish singersongwriter Jose Gonzalez has been one of the staunchest adherents of that manifesto.
Early on, it was revelatory covers of songs such as The Knife’s Heartbeats and Kylie Minogue’s Hand On Your Heart which broke him through to a wider audience. But now, he is confident enough to mine his specific vein of music without directly tapping into the works of others.
Vestiges & Claws is only his third solo album, after Veneer (2003) and In Our Nature (2007), and it stays true to the same hushed, almost austere, aesthetic – his caressing murmur of a voice buttressed by a guitar line.
Emotions can roil though beneath that placid facade. He croons on Stories We Build, Stories We Tell: “Got myself angering over you/Sitting in silence, wondering what to do.”
But he is not one to stew in negativity, and much of Vestiges & Claws is a heartfelt embracing of nature and the world we are in.
“Migrant birds pass by/Taking off to warmer skies” in Let It Carry You and “Landscapes blurred by rain/Mountains covered in snow” paint an evocative picture in The Forest.
On the single Leaf Off/The Cave, he observes “How the light feeds life/What makes up you and I/What it takes to thrive/What we need to survive” and urges: “Make the light lead you out.”
At other times, nature blooms as a metaphor. Every Age proposes: “Every branch of the tree has to learn/Learn to grow, find its way.”
It is not as though Gonzalez has all the answers and he confesses to self-doubt on Open Book: “What am I doing here?/What’s this leading to?”
Still, his calm and earnest contemplation is mesmerising.
(ST)