Held By Trees (HBT) is a ‘post-rock collective of musicians’ formed by multi-instrumentalist David Joseph in 2020, after his experiences with several rock bands and the release of two instrumental albums: Solace (2022) and Eventide/Solace, ‘live at Real World’ (2023). Joseph brought in his friend Martin Smith to contribute vocals. Smith claims “I’ve loved the sound of HBT for years and I leapt at the chance to perform with them, I hope people like what we’ve created”.
What they’ve created is an album of three tracks, comprising two pieces of music with lyrics added, running over twelve minutes each, plus another track which runs to four minutes. The same three pieces are offered again, at the same length though this time as instrumentals, with one track offered for a third time but played in a more ambient style.
This is an absorbing album from Joseph and his cast of musicians, whose pedigree is quite impressive, including stints playing with Paul McCartney, Talk Talk, Dire Straits and The Pretenders listed in the various resumes. ‘You Deserve’ opens proceedings and is a song about someone expressing their deep appreciation to the love of their life… ‘You’re the most important person here, and I live to love you more and more’. The backing is gorgeous with the feel of something from a later period David Gilmour solo album with some Floyd like touches. ‘Lay Your Troubles Down’ is another delightful piece, expressing the universal sentiment of putting troubles aside and taking the angst out of life. These two tunes are minimalist in approach and lean slightly towards prog. While all the playing on the album is superb, on these two tracks, a shout-out goes to guitarist Stuart Gerrard for some fabulously unstated yet very effective guitar licks.
Whereas the two preceding tracks are both slower pieces and exceed 12 minutes, ‘Oh My Love’ is a shorter track, only four minutes. It’s a definite 1970s song as it’s much more up-tempo and comes across like Dire Straits being backed by the Average White Band.
The same three tracks are offered again but as instrumentals and as good as the playing is, I’m unconvinced they work as slow, twelve-minute instrumentals. However, ‘Lay Your Troubles Down’ is shortened to four minutes for an ambient version with the same backing and with the gorgeous vocals of Anita Tatlow added to the mix, this is a beautiful version. A pity her voice wasn’t heard more on this very fine album.
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