Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
How we use language is a guide to how we see humanity, the more it is flourished, how it insists upon growth and diversity, the way it is structured with words that adaptable, malleable, full of strong conscious words that make a person weep with exultation and dream of peace, then the chances are that the language used is one of a truth that has been truly embraced.
Language is like the seasons that we guide and regulate our life by, the sterile cold of winter can see it reduced to that in which is contracted, warmed only by the fire of love and the need to keep safe in shelters and away from the animals of contradiction. Spring bring hopes, our language evolves, it finds the shoots of seasoning and the furrow of the eternal, summer releases the power of illumination, the sultry, the sometimes oppressive and humid, and the evidence of autumn is in the way that The Harvest is reaped, how the words flow as they are plucked and used to describe the bounty on offer, how gracious we are in sharing the thoughts and the love with others.
To share is the ethos of Afton Wolfe, his own offered crop has seen his latest album’s bounty be one of welcome addition, one that utilises and flourishes the roots of his love; a man not shy of explaining of how his path has been confronted by twists and turns, and how that has led to the language on offer in the tracks, Harvest, New Orleans Going Down, Lost Prayers, Hello, Mr. Wolf, Til The River No Longer Flows, Mississippi, and Here To Stay as being rich in heritage and celebration; of being the genesis for a different and fruitful approach of talking through your art.
The album is that expression of language that leads to admiration and a rooted headline of love, of adventure, of the gathering together of the bounty tended with care, and whilst winter may be a short time away, the fact is that in language with all its colour and communication is never far from our grasp.
An album of articulation and great fortune, The Harvest is for the world at large.
Afton Wolfe releases The Harvest on November 17th on Grandiflora Records.
Ian D. Hall