For anyone unfamiliar with his name, Bruce Soord is guitar man, vocalist and the creative and driving force behind The Pineapple Thief, rated as one of the more interesting and innovative prog bands on the scene but, with this release, he’s stepped away from his day job for a solo album. While any number of such albums usually have the feel of an ‘ego trip,’ this one comes across as a genuine effort to be creative. This album was originally recorded in the summer of 2015 at his home studio, writing and recording everything himself with occasional assistance on guitar from Darren Charles, from Godsticks. It’s now being rereleased, having been half speed remastered at Abbey Road, and available on pearl blue vinyl.
Bruce has put together an album where he casts his eye back across his life and where he eulogises times and memories of places and people in Yeovil, Somerset, with a series of rich and emotionally laden songs. It’s a personal exploration of a place in time and his memories of a once bustling small town, which has changed considerably. In other words, he’s revisited his back story for inspiration. As he says, it’s a ‘celebration of the past as much as an epitaph of times past.’
He sets the tone with the opening song, the mostly piano-led ‘Black Smoke,’ a gentle memory evoker and an elegy for how his home town has changed, and how people and places are all different. There’s a considerable degree of introspection and lyrical sensitivity, more so than when he writes for the Thief, as heard on pieces like ‘Familiar Patterns,’ with its refrain of ‘is this the dream we shared,’ and the delightfully emotive ‘A Thousand Daggers’.Â
The tracks ‘Field Day’ parts 1 and 2, with Soord claiming the latter will “forever hold a place in my heart,” were written around the time he became a father again in 2015. He had also become a full-time musician, claiming “the huge regrets all fall into dark, but don’t be afraid.” Then ‘Was Born In Delusion,’ he sings of someone being “raised and crushed in a house of love,” drawn from bitter personal experience? The mainly acoustic ‘Buried Here’ has the occasional feel of Porcupine Tree, with subtle guitar touches added by Darren Charles. Perhaps ‘Willow Tree’ sums it all up as the message is the willow tree stays the same while we don’t… “This willow tree you gave to me remains”.
The overall tone is introspective and contemplative, but the pathos isn’t overdone and there’s no sense of Soord simply indulging in being maudlin. He just seems to be accepting “this is how things are now in my hometown.” I wonder if he still feels like this in 2025?
