Held By Trees first came to my notice last year with the release of a single, Mysterium, which features on this debut album, and the accompanying PR blurb which stated that this was a new instrumental project with a huge range of stellar guest musicians, including founder member of Dire Straits, David Knopfler, whose work I loved on those first couple of Straits albums, and described by project leader, multi-instrumentalist David Joseph, as featuring members from latter-day Talk Talk and Mark Hollis albums and sitting musically somewhere between that venerable outfit and Gilmour-era Pink Floyd. I must be honest; I don’t take a great deal of notice of PR or corporate press releases. They exist as clickbait and I like to make my own judgement, but the single was good, and the album release is a welcome one.

There have been some exceptional instrumental albums released this year, and Solace joins them at the pinnacle. I live in a beautiful part of the world, a short walk from Wales’s National Botanical Gardens which, although obviously busy with tourists, is big enough if you are familiar with the area to lose yourself with the sound of nature on your own, and it is that sense of the joy of oneness with the natural world, unsullied by development and the corporate urban world, which is radiated on the first track, Next To Silence. I was immediately hooked. It is simply a recording of birds set against a very simple and delicate piano, a wonderfully fragile flute, strings, and effects. If you close your eyes, you imagine yourself on the river in a coracle being transported surrounded by the sound of life, and this is the finest such track I have heard since Tarka the Otter by Ant Phillips.

In The Trees (which was the debut single and can be viewed below) provides us with the main album beginning. It is one of three tracks more than six minutes long (none are more than six and a half). The slightly jazzy feel to the opening features a nice percussive beat and then clarinet set against a string bassline and delicate guitar work. As it moves forward, the guitars, especially, evoke the scene of the busy life of the birds among the trees as witnessed in the lush album cover. As the song closes, we have the basic drum and percussion beat alone, and you get a sense that much of the music overlaid over this pattern was improvised with the life in the trees as the only guiding principle.

Rain After Sun follows. It begins with the sound of rain beating down upon the earth, another familiar sound in West Wales incidentally! The guitar chords are steely and a minute in we are introduced to the loveliest sax piece which leads the jam chords of guitars, piano, organ, and rhythm section. Towards the close, keyboards and guitar establish themselves as the leading proponents before the track gently closes with the rainstorm glittering in our ears. This is another very impressive track built on a simple foundation.

Wave Upon Wave follows this, and you are greeted with the sound of the wind and sea hitting the shore. Close your eyes, and you are transported to the coast. The acoustic guitar work on this is gorgeous, set over a string bass and simple piano notes, this is a lovely piece.

An Approach follows, and this features a concertina as the lead to a gentle acoustic guitar support in a slow-moving shanty. I recently reviewed the new album Dawn by Scottish folk band Talisk, and this track feels very much in the same vein as that fine work. Indeed, if you like Solace, you will certainly find much to enjoy in Dawn.

The Tree of Life follows, another six-minute plus song, and this has more of a rock vibe to it. The drum and percussion are again simple, but effective in its relentless beat, and there is a fantastic guitar riff which provides us with perhaps the first truly expansive moment on the album. This then gives way to a gorgeous acoustic guitar and piano lead, with the riff chords still underlying the piece. The track develops into a masterclass in what acoustic and electric guitar should sound like in a duet. This passage then moves to a double bass and keyboard led dreamy sequence which introduces a classic jazz muted trumpet, and the final couple of minutes are, indeed, very much classic improv jazz.

The aforementioned Mysterium follows. The video is embedded below, and it and the music perfectly encapsulate a walk in British countryside (the video was filmed in New Forest & Lake District), with dogs accompanying and being heard in the distance. Once again, the lead guitar is emotional and so evocative, crying out to us, a huge contribution by Robbie McIntosh.

The closing track is The New Earth, which has another jazzy rhythm at its core, some plaintive woodwind, some more gorgeous guitar before we have the return of the saxophone. Hazy, dreamy, and quite wonderful, especially as the expansive final two minutes kick-in with a wonderful ensemble led by electric guitar solo.

This album is about as pastoral as it gets. In fact, it sits firmly within that great British tradition of music at its roots telling a story of the land and life around us, thus, in my opinion, deserving to be mentioned in the same breath as works such as Jethro Tull’s Heavy Horses, much of The Pentangle’s work, and so on. No, it doesn’t sound like them, but it is certainly a part of that tradition.

As I commenced my rough notes for reviewing this album, I revisited Talk Talk’s wonderful album, Spirit of Eden, and it is clearly the case that those of you who love that and similar works will find much to enjoy in this new project, which I must stress is more than good enough in its own right to not need to stand any such comparison.

Very highly recommended. It is available on iTunes for the extremely reasonable price of £7.92, and there is a subscription option available on Bandcamp at https://heldbytrees.bandcamp.com/subscribe