The Declining Winter, the project of of Richard Vincent Adams, former member of Hood, is back, just one year after the mighty Really Early ,Really Late -his first proper album since 2018- with a new single and the announcement of a new album.
Today is out, on all streaming platforms, Mother’s Son, a reworked version of a song whose demo was out in July 2022, following the sad news of Richard’s mother Jean passing away in April that year. The (sad) song is the first taste of the new album, Last April, (previously described as an EP of very very sad songs in collaboration with Sarah Kemp aka Brave Timbers) which will be out on Second Language Music November 1st 2024.

What Richard Says: “Mother’s Son is taken from our upcoming album Last April. Both the song and the album are pretty personal to me to the point where I’ve had a few bouts of cold feet as to whether it should come out at all. It feels a bit like ripping my heart out of my chest and putting it on display for people to stare at. However, making the album was very therapeutic for me and so I hope that by putting it out in the world it may help someone else in some way. “

The Album:

“Far below the candyfloss, stadium-filling pop-pap, the saccharine sentiments, the airbrushed idealism, the depthless, vacuous transience of social media, there’s the music that MUST be made, words that MUST come out, regardless of whether anyone is listening. The artists who make these songs voluntarily exist in the shadows, away from the noise and the spotlights; for it is here that an integral tranquillity allows them to reflect on the unvarnished reality of human existence. The Declining Winter’s Last April is not a heart-on-your-sleeve record. It does away with the sleeve and goes straight for carving a heart on the arm. An album which emerged out of a period of shock, grief and trauma, its six songs were all written on the same night and form a stately tribute to a loved one lost. Most of us have been here, of course – these are universal themes – we all experience loss, grief, heartbreak and we all have our own ways of coping. “It doesn’t get better, it gets different” a friend assured me in the wake of my own father’s passing and no truer words were spoken.”

While their previous album (2023’s Really Early, Really Late) was lush, ornate and featuring a wide array of instrumentation, Last April strips things back to just Richard Adams’ plaintive voice and acoustic guitar, alongside the beautiful, irrefutably melancholy string arrangements/playing of Sarah Kemp (Brave Timbers). There’s been no attempt to plane off any rough edges – here and there, the creak of a chair, a guitar note missed, a voice almost cracking with emotion – these recordings are like cathartic scrawls in a diary. Only this one has been left out for anyone to read. Following in the tradition of emotionally raw albums – Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Songs:Ohia’s Didn’t It Rain, Red House Painters’ Down Colorful Hill come to mind – the space in between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves. As with his previous band, Hood, Adams has a way of evoking a particularly pastoral, English melancholy, of lonely morning hikes in inclement weathers, of rain on slate in the West Yorkshire streets where he was raised and still lives. Last April is a monument to a loved one, a monument that, much like stone, will outlive us all. There’s comfort in that and in that, whoever might hear it, they might feel a little less alone. This is an album that exists simply because it has to.

Track List

1. Eyes On Mine
2.Last April
3.Lime Tree House
4.Mother’s Son
5.My Greatest Friend
6.August Blue
7.One Year (Bonus Track)
8.When The Wind Blows, I Hear Your Voice (Bonus Track)

Mother’s Son is out now. Last April will be out November 1st via Second Language Music. Look HERE for more information on The Declining Winter.