WILLIAM DOYLE
Springs Eternal (Tough Love)
Proverbially speaking, it’s hope that springs eternal. But on Eternal Spring, the title track-of-sorts of William Doyle’s new album, the fount is not a source of spiritual sustenance but something in which to drown. Typical, really – with Doyle, nothing is ever quite what it seems.
One thing is certain, though: he knows how to floor the listener from the very start. Just as I Need To Keep You In My Life made for an arresting opening to 2021’s Great Spans Of Muddy Time, so too does Garden Of The Morning grip the attention, a characteristically high-wire act on which he laments that “love was made to dissolve”.
In fairness, Soft To The Touch, Castawayed and A Short Illness are almost equally stunning – the latter akin to eavesdropping on Rufus Wainwright on his deathbed, anxious over how his demise will be reported. Elsewhere, surprises abound: Cannot Unsee doffing a hat to Field Music and their forebears XTC; Now In Motion taking a detour to the disco.
Doyle’s lyrics can be obscure, and he thinks nothing of tossing in words like “terrarium” and “glossolalia” – but his voice rings high and clear, as singular as his vision.
words BEN WOOLHEAD
