One of the most striking moments of Conversations, the debut from Kendal quartet Woman's Hour, comes in the middle of 'Darkest Place'; Fiona Burgess' voice sounds almost too close as she sings of a lost love: "wherever I look you're always there/I close my eyes and it's even worse/you hang around on the clothes I wear/and I can't even tell you how much it hurts". There are no lyrical flourishes here, no metaphor or allegory. The simplicity and starkness of these lines are beyond devastating.
This is not an isolated incident. Conversations constantly brings forth the lump in the throat, battled back day after day, and puts a soothing hand on your back as you let it all out. From start to finish, this is a hugely cathartic record; the listener is gifted a seemingly endless sonic expanse but, like when the mind becomes clear, only then do you realise that you are forced to confront the nothingness and all that comes with it. Nicholas Graves' sparse keys open up the space, while the guitar work of Will Burgess skirts around the vocals, sometimes approaching, sometimes hanging back.
For me, this record shows that catharsis begets catharsis; it comes so close to speaking to the most primal pain in us that it inspires the listener to pick up the baton and continue the quest of wrestling that bittersweet feeling into a creative capsule. Conversations is perhaps the most unashamedly personal album I've heard this year and because of this I am continually enamoured by it.
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