RECOMMENDED RECORD: The Veils: Asphodels (digital outlets)

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes in a gatefold sleeve with lyric booklet.

Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .

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When we reviewed a 2023 concert at Auckland's Powerstation by Finn Andrews (aka The Veils), we couldn't help but point out the numerous images from Christian and Greek religion he drew on.

At time he seemed to also be in an ecstatic state as he came off like a rock'n'roll Pentecostal preacher.

As we noted in the review, these images are not uncommon in contemporary music and obvious reference points would be Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen.

Andrews was touring his terrific 2023 album … And Out of the Void Came Love (one of our picks of that year), but you could still discern trace elements of influences: Bowie, Cave, Cohen.

But this mostly spare new album – again with evocative string arrangements by Victoria Kelly – finds Andrews frequently at the piano exploring ideas around the perfumed allure of death and the mystery of this brief existence (Dream of Life).

In places it eases toward the meditations of melancholy Romantic poets, with a smidgen of chamber pop sensibilities to bring home the subtle choruses.

As on The Ladder, a metaphorical journey across the River Styx which has an uplifting hopefulness: “Lead me to the ladder to anywhere instead. Out across the water of the river of the dead”.

Or the quiet and haunting cello-coloured O Fortune Teller.

Taking its title from the white lily associated with death, Asphodels has Andrews as balladeer for the first half but shifts into a higher pop gear for the final third starting with the rolling groove Melancholy Mood (a more metaphysical take on Lennon's slight Bring on the Lucie) and the grounded, natural imagery of Concrete After Rain (with an ambient backdrop of uneasy strings and saxophone).

The optimistic A Land Beyond – which speaks of the promise of an afterlife – closes this album which opened with these words in mood-setting title track: “So through the wood I walked and left this world behind. I went down that track and could not look back”.

As a sustained and refined exploration of mortality, mysticism and spirituality, Asphodels is thoughtful without resorting to maudlin sentimentality.

Not a Veils album for those who prefer his more strenuous exertions and hellfire preacher moods, but Finn Andrews was always moving in this direction: inward.

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You can hear this album at Spotify here