The English folk and alt-country singer-songwriter’s enthralling new LP is about ‘overcoming entropy, and the will of human beings to push on and create order and patterns in the madness and chaos of our existence’, and originally came out in October. Much admired by Frank Turner, whom he has supported on tour, Varley’s delivery on opener Somers Time, with reference to the open road, has a soft Springsteen style. The country-flavoured Colour TV begins by boarding a train, and is slow burn, reflective number, but the pick is the title track, as well as Dreamland and Her Own Private Universe. The final few songs, particularly Live Again, and The Lonely & The Brave, seem to imitate the echoey, ghostly quality of Bon Iver, but Varley is at his strongest when we’re exposed to the raw experience and emotion of just him and the guitar without any embellishments. Out on Yellow Cake.
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