French For Rabbits – The Weight Of Melted Snow (Southbound)

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Singer/Songwriters Brooke Singer and John Fitzgerald began writing and demoing on Lo-fi equipment down at Waikuku Beach back in 2011.  Back then they were a team – both in their personal life and in music.  Over time they’ve grown up and out.  Their project has now morphed from a duo to a party of five as they’ve successfully moved from the bedroom studio to the big stages of European festivals .  Regulars at WOMAD would have seen them last year and punter attending this year’s Coasteller festival would have been mesmerised by the magic of their ambient dream-folk. 

But all has not been well between Singer and Fitzgerald and even though there was commercial success it couldn’t stop the breakup of their relationship.  As seems quite common with Kiwi acts (The Naked and Famous being the most recent example) instead of separating completely it became the inspiration and catalyst for this wonderful new album.

The title track is intended to be a soliloquy to a changing relationship but when I listen to its execution I can’t help finding a slight Nordic folk theme in both the music and lyrics.  Although based in Aotearoa the band have cleverly transported themselves sonically into some mysterious Northern woods.  Perhaps it’s Brooke Singer’s deliciously delicate, elvish vocals that make these lines seem like they’ve been lifted from an old folk tale.  “Sadness steals my body.  Fills my bones.  A careless lark a heavy moan.  Peter pick her up or let her go. Her wings are but the weight of melted snow.”  The song references birds from every point in the compass point considering this one dying bird – like dying to break free and letting go.  I’m not sure who the ‘Peter’ is in this song but he has a heavy burden, under the weight of melting snow, this carcass will dissolve and be lost for ever if he’s not careful.

Almost as a response to the tragedy of that opening song It’ll Be OK is more positive and upbeat, despite the darkness of the lyrics.  There’s a touch of menacing in the opening lines.  This is Song for the morning after the break-up.  When you try to rise and realise what it all means.  You feel a deep loss, you are depressed and cannot fine meaning anymore.  With its cinematic approach, it includes swirling orchestral brush strokes to emphasise the lines: “Take one last look in the mirror before I break it.  I don’t want to see that self-loathing get the better of you.”  On the surface this seems like a simple note to self – stop wallowing in self-pity.  But can it be so simple?  Can you just get up, shake it off and get on with life?  “It will be ok when the lights go out.  I run outside at the break of day, to remind myself it’ll be ok.”  For anyone who’s ever been through a separation it’s a familiar dichotomy.

In contrast, perhaps, One and Only presents itself as its own self-contained romance, a softly played out vignette about the first meeting in the park and falling in love.  “So lost without surrender”.  However, this is no mushy ballad about those better days, when the relationship was in its flourishing stages.  It feels so genuine, perhaps because of the lack of melodrama and theatrics.  No swelling chords and choruses to tug the heartstrings, no over bloated gushing – just gentle observation and restrained acknowledgement: “I bowed my head like a willow to the water To be your one and only lover.  Cause you are my love”.  The simple poetry in these lines is so perfect.  Yet now, as the singer reminiscences we know this is all doomed.

By track 7 it’s starting to dawn on me that there’s a manifesto running through this album – one that seeks to tie every song to a point in the separation cycle as it rolls from the initial shock to the anger to the cathartic resolution and on, hopefully, to the healing.  That’s at its clearest point on Deadwood (Track 7) which literally states how to get rid of all the collateral damaged baggage of a past relationship.  “Sweeping Out the Cobwebs from my brain, Clearing away all the melancholy hearts I have broken”.  And on the very next track Close My Eyes there is the acknowledgement of the consequences of moving on “Into the silence, this void I’m trying to avoid.”

There’s more references to dying birds on Feathers and Dreams: “I watched in horror as the bird went up in flames.  Couldn’t beat his wings fast enough to up and fly away.”  Not everyone becomes a Phoenix, rising from the embers of a shattered love affair.  This is not that kind of song but all sounds like its going to disappear down some deep hole of depression.  Yet the music is determined to go the other way, slowly building to a euphoric statement in a mix of heavy percussion, echoes and reverb supported by acoustic guitars that remain until the final subsidence of the song.  It’s the strongest moment in this album and one of its most potent.

French for Rabbits’ earlier works, Claimed By The Sea and the album Spirits, had strong ties to the landscape and a strong sense of the environment.  Partially, this was due to their Canterbury coastal roots and partially because of variances they encountered when European festival touring.  This time they choose excursions into the human heart and spirit, all be it somewhat bruised.  This is a heartbreak and recovery album but one that avoids the cliché’s and the schmaltz.  And it’s all the better for that.  It’s about loss and what remains.  The lines of the final ballad Days Shift probably sum it up best: “Cause we all want to be remembered.  We want to be courageous, but I’m falling behind.  Don’t want to be swept up in the tide.”

Tim Gruar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z8nd2h8do0&t=1s

 

Marty Duda
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