Beatrix Players 2023
Living & Alive
Enchanting English group are back to find grandeur in the everyday grasping of empirical delights.
With three graces on its cover, “Magnified” – a debut album by the London ensemble whose very name would suggest a combination of rhythm and blessedness as well as constant movement – may have seemed to be a bit self-conscious, its solemn sonics both ethereal and earthly in their Renaissance splendor, but that platter’s successor, appearing five years further up the road, is building a slightly different edifice on the same basis. Incorporating wisdoms explored by principal singer-songwriter Amy Birks on two personal records she released in the interim and featuring expanded line-up to electrify the band’s original chamber approach, “Living & Alive” delves into the contrast between mere existence and seizing the day to celebrate the simple sanguinity of routine triumphs.
And the ten pieces on display here feel full-blooded too, despite the deceptive chill of their thrilling tunes and philosophical lyrics, the initially funereal drift of mini-epic “Snowflakes” flowering into an uplifting, folk-informed flow of emotions, as Ms Birks’ double-tracked vocals flutter above acoustic strum – distilled from the delicate weave of John Hackett‘s flute and Matthew Lumb’s piano, which is anchored with a wave of Jane Fenton’s cello – for her delivery to grow strong and soar towards orchestral skies and the ultimate independence. Not for nothing the album’s final cuts are “Free” and “Me, I Am Me” – the former an alluringly vaudevillian number showcasing Amy’s ability to embrace theatric dynamics and finding the woodwind wrapped in Oliver Day and Tom Manning’s guitars, the latter an exquisitely festive, if riff-driven, serenade to one’s inner world, and an echo of her first solo effort, 2020’s “All That I Am & All That I Was” – that express joie de vivre in the most vibrant way. However, to get there the listener will have to experience the velvet gloom of “Somebody Else’s Eyes” where the tender groove of Andrew Brooker’s drums, the elastic twang of Kyle Welch’s bass and effervescent six-string passages gel into a captivating background for the voice and reeds to paint on, while “This Is Your Life” immediately bursts in colorful confetti the chanteuse’s pipes shoot in the air with unexpected vigor, with the rest of the musicians bolstering her anthemic rise via choral and instrumental swirl.
There’s even more urgency to the insistent roll of the rippling “Overflow” and to the pulsing lace of “Start Again” which the ivories embroider in a vibrant, pop-oriented manner before switching to baroque patterns, yet the symphonic balladry behind “A Beautiful Lie” is spiritually soothing, and the operatic “Purgatory” has a resonant magnificence seeping through its spectral, albeit tangible, slider-oiled presence. And then there’s the ruminative “You Can’t Hit A Nail” whose optimistic message and crystalline shimmer are enveloped in subdued grandeur once again emphasizing the “There’s no such thing as an ordinary moment” rule Amy has stated at the album’s start. A breathtaking aural spectacle, the songs of “Living & Alive” come across as a paean to uncommon instants, as something everyone should hear.
*****
