Everything Has To End Somewhere

REVIEWS

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There's no shortage of glum young minstrels who elicit Nick Drake comparisons. For his plummy English sense of desolation, the chief Herdsman Pete Lush is closer than most. In As You Leave he might have written the most affecting break-up song you'll ever hear. Like many of this album's best moments, it's the sound of a stiff upper lip trying to get to the end of the song without wobbling. Even if he manages it, you might not.

 

Pete Paphides - The Times

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For their second album, South Coast 21st-century folksters Things in Herds have joined up with the like-minded Fence collective, whose King Creosote is going to have to go some if he's going to match with his own forthcoming album what he's had a remastering hand in here. Remarkably they've managed to pare back their sound further until the delicately plucked guitar and spider's web of an electronic backing can border on the insubstantial. But the songs at the core have a renewed strength and a plaintive beauty that makes them terrifically compelling.

And it's not all downbeat drift. Now and then a song like No One Said a Word or I Thought You Were Waiting will soar in achingly yearning flight. Anyone with even a mote of tender-(as in bruised)hearted romanticism in their soul ought to be able to shed a tear for this. Really rather fabulous.

Matt H. Soundsxp.com

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Turn the lights down low (or turn them off altogether). Get your beer, wine, cigarettes or whatever you need for comfort and put the latest recording by Things In Herds. For anyone with an ounce of romance, who has ever tasted disappointment in love; be prepared to take an emotional ride to those open wounds you thought you'd left behind. I know not everybody likes music to change their mood, to break their heart. I can survive on thrash and energy for weeks but there are times when I need to reflect and relax from the endless forced optimism that living sometimes requires. Into this space, this insulated box, comes Things In Herds.

Pete Lush has a voice of such clarity and tenderness that when mixed with these astonishingly simple, crafted songs he produces music of exquisite beauty. When he sings a line likeYou have loved and that's enough he can imbue such tenderness, pathos and sense of emotional tension. This album is a more muted affair than the first album, even sparser instrumentation on most songs. But the difference is that the slower songs on I Can Walking and Dancing didn't always hold the attention, whereas here every song is capable of stopping you in your tracks. Perhaps it slightly fades in fascination towards the end, but this is quite simply the best, saddest music you could ever hope to hear. Cathartic and precious.

David Home http://www.coolnoise.co.uk

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Things in Herds are Brighton-based Pete Lush and his associate, Miss Ping. Together they make music so fragile it should be enclosed in bubble wrap. Don't be surprised if , while listening to it, you find yourself telling friends and strangers alike to 'shhh!' as you strain to pick out the understated harmonies.

Essentially this is a bedroom recording and production is sparse to say the least. Most tracks consist of Lush quietly finger-picking as an electric guitar low-down in the mix fills the resultant empty space. His voice quivers and shakes as he mumbles very sad songs very quietly. Yet it's captivating, songs so personla and heartfelt that only a heart of stone could feel no empathy.

The limitations of the low-budget recording surface mid-way through the album. As another song begins the same as the last, one yearns fo some variety. But Lush is one step ahead of the game. Like an Insect, backed only by electronics, reveals another side to Things in Herds before the whole album twists and turns in the final few tracks. Here Pete comes close to rocking out as electric guitars and even riffs rise up in the mix, like he's breaking free from the claustrophobia of the opening songs.

Wherever the band's imminent move to Fence Records will take them, 'Everything...' is worthy of investigation now.

AW - Comes with a smile

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It’s not surprising Fence Records picked up Things In Herds for one of their latest single releases, as their superior folk qualities equal, if not better the recorded output of the Fence Collective.

After two self-released albums on home-made CDR’s, song-writer Pete Lush and Miss Ping who make up the duo created their own G-Folk imprint to unleash their third magic opus, ‘Everything Has To End Somewhere’.

Mainly consisting of quaint and gentle folk numbers with refrained vocals and acoustic guitar, comparisons can be made to the likes of the alt-country inspired post-rock of Papa M on ‘Been Down Here Much Too Long’, the twee indie of Belle & Sebastian within ‘It’s All Allowed’ and of course, the token Nick Drake comparison on ‘Weightless’.

More mainstream moments ‘No One Said A Word’ and ‘I Thought You Were Waiting’ however, recall Keane or Snow Patrol, with the addition of drums, electric guitar, bass, synths and even theremin. In juxtaposition with the rest of the album, these tracks beg for commercial achievement.

10 tracks of melancholic, understated music that drips with graceful melody and sheer elegance.

--Dave R. www.angryape.co.uk

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Pete Lush spins his deeply melancholic introspective meditations with acoustic/low volume amplification, and low key Joe Meek electronics. Ten songs for the broken hearted, sung in a warm young man's voice entreating and confessing some universal human sorrow. That; in truth this will all pass away, and if one is lucky they have some memories, if little else to act as bookends to a lifetime. Since each moment is irreplaceable, it should be treasured. So here are some poignant moments that feel almost as sweet and tragic as life itself. Nick Drake might be a signpost to the
neighborhood; but the honest gravity and sway of these heartfelt songs will carry you home no matter where you live.

George Parsons Dream Magazine #5

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Hmmm, everything ends in Police stations and divorce courts if my experience is anything to go by, but let’s see what we’ve got here… It is, just as we expected, fucking weird. Opening with a gentle, Russian tinged thing that seeps fragile sounds from under the Donald Sutherland in fireside chat mode vocal it gets stranger, oh yes, but it’s lovely stuff.

Quietly, intensely, very British in it’s brittle emotionalism and restrained expressions, listen to “As You Leave” and it’s an everyday tale of unbearable ankst that our European and American cousins would be screaming with full guitar artillery accompaniment, but Things In Herds do the decent thing and articulate tastefully, sparingingly and beautifully, bet there’s some body parts in the fridge though.

Although everything does have to end somewhere, there a full ten tunes on this insane slab, and they are all, every one, Faberge eggs under pressure, all works of cunning, subtlety and all the products of incredible pressure, they’re on about life and what a treat, what a shit it is and what they think about it all, futility, beauty, rage, hope, despair and jokes. A grower, an a friend, albeit a dangerously erudite one. I love this record.

Now, can I direct you to their webshite www.thingsinherds.co.uk and get back to saying ‘fuck that’ about noisy children with silly haircuts?

http://www.unpeeled.co.uk

 

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Things in Herds are Pete Lush and the enigmatically titled Miss Ping who make their music in Brighton. Initially starting out under their own label (G-Folk Records), debut album ‘I Can Walking And Dancing’ was picked up by the Norwegian label Trust Me in 2002 and in 2004 found a Stateside release courtesy of Undecided Records. They’ve now found a new home with Scotland’s Fence Records who will soon be releasing a 30 minute EP. Until then we have their own label’s sophomore effort ‘Everything Has To End Somewhere’.

The album is a fragile artefact with a number of its ten tracks threatening to break-down under the delicate weight of their sad but oddly comforting lullabies. For a reference point I’ll call this indie-folk, given the predominance of acoustic guitar and Lush’s hushed and quivering vocals across many of the tracks. However, there is also some of the glitter of the space-rock of Grandaddy, Mercury Rev and Sparklehorse in there that casts light in the shade of Lush’s romantic but often heart-rending lyrics. Whilst not actually “rocking-out” tracks such as ‘No One Said A Word’ and ‘I Thought You Were Waiting’ provide a welcome contrast to the claustrophobia of Lush’s musical and lyrical introspection.

Not that I’m complaining about the quiet moments that make up the bread and butter of ‘Everything Has To End Somewhere’. Lush is a gifted song-writer who bravely and resourcefully casts his songs in basic lo-fi arrangements; but he can do little to disguise their quality, despite the unadorned settings in which they are presented. The acoustic sparseness is punctuated at times by the occasional harmonising of Miss Ping and the addition of twisted electronica. On the beautiful ‘Like An Insect’ the acoustic guitar is ditched altogether in favour of a completely electronic backdrop that is satisfyingly warped without actually distracting you from the song’s affecting melody.

Strangely enough, although this music is well-suited to its simple DIY presentation I feel that Lush’s songs are more than strong enough to withstand the further expansion that studio-based production would offer without destroying their intimate melancholy. It’s his willingness to distort the acoustic sound with well-judged electronic experimentation that offers him the scope for a wider musical platform.

Perhaps the first instalment from Fence Records will provide that further dimension in sound.

Different Drum http://www.whisperinandhollerin.com/

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A wooden Zebra: giant in size. Carried o’er prairies by miniature pigs. Awesome. So were it not for the fact that Things in Herds fashion such exquisite, enchanting, fragile incantations, I’d abandon their CD in favour of its cover. Still, our aforementioned Brighton tech-folk exemplars outshine their nigh-mythological artwork - with a glowing collection of bruised, bleak melodies and shimmering, swelling, lo-fi electro. Loosely affiliated to the Fence Collective, sometimes… Herds sound like Low, Mercury Rev, Nick Drake, heartbreak. ‘As You Leave’ is understated, underplayed, sublime. “Why are you /
Packing up? / You have love / That’s enough / For most people,” sobs trembling vocalist Pete Lush, over choking chords that fall like tears.
Picking up commendably, however, and dusting itself down like a tear-stained trooper, the album affects an up-beat disposition and paints a smile of curling theremin trickery, best accomplished in the trilling ‘I Thought You Were Waiting.’ We’re waiting alright, baby. For live shows, for Zebras, for more songs by Things in Herds. NM

NM http://www.isthismusic.com/

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