English singer-songwriter Ben Howard’s three previous albums all have a different feel to them. The folk artist made his debut in 2011 with Every Kingdom, his most instantly gratifying album, and followed it up with I Forget Where We Were, a more complex record that rewarded listeners’ efforts and remains to many his best collection. 2018’s Noonday Dream was darker in feel, and marked a change in tone for Howard, but was no less excellent. 

For his latest and fourth studio album Collections From The Whiteout, Howard has teamed up with guitarist and producer Aaron Dessner of The National. Much has been made of this collaboration which came about after Howard heard Dessner’s experimental piece Santa Agnes. In a way, this working together reflects the evolution seen through the progression of Howard’s back catalogue – each new release has always shown a willingness to experiment and bring new features into his sound.

Opening with the ghostly Follies Fixture, you get the sense Howard is reaping the rewards of Dessner’s input. Far Out is pretty unlike anything Howard has done to date, an off-kilter drum beat and juddery electric guitars combining for a trippy affair, while new single Sorry Kid layers drum machine loops over a melancholic electric guitar to sublime effect. 

Lyrically too there’s a lot going on here. The edgy and unsettling Finders Keepers documents the finding of a body in a suitcase floating in a river. Howard seems interested in examining figures who have suffered tragic breakdowns too, such as the sailor Donald Crowhurst (who is believed to have committed suicide after fearing his cheating in a round the world race was going to be exposed) on Crowhurst’s Meme and Richard Russell (the American who stole a plane from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in 2018 and crashed it into Ketron Island in Washington) on The Strange Last Flight Of Richard Russell.

There’s more typical Howard tracks, of course, but these too seem to have grown as well. Rookery, for example, evokes much of Howard’s earlier work albeit in a more playful way, but Collections From The Whiteout is a record that yet again sees Howard pushing his creative boundaries, with wonderful results. 

Collections From The Whiteout tracklist:

1. Follies Fixture
2. What A Day
3. Crowhurst’s Meme
4. Finders Keepers
5. Far Out
6. Rookery
7. You Have Your Way
8. Sage That She Was Burning
9. Sorry Kid
10. Unfurling
11. Metaphysical Cantations
12. Make Arrangements
13. The Strange Last Flight Of Richard Russell
14. Buzzard

Watch the official video for Sorry Kid here.

Author: Joe Sharratt

Joe Sharratt is a writer and journalist based in the UK covering music, literature, sport, and travel.