I Forget Where We Were

Having been generally unseen and under the radar in the past year since winning two Brit Awards, and gaining a Mercury Prize nomination in 2013, and even staying relatively out of the limelight during the lead up to this album, Ben Howard has returned to the surface with I Forget Where We Were, and a much darker and more brooding sound than that which may have been expected.

The opening song, ‘Small Things’, seems to continue the darker themes that Howard began to explore in his 2012’s The Burgh Island EP, with metallic guitar twangs gliding around the fret board, interrupted by crashing cymbals, yet still maintaining a slower and more experimental feel compared to the easy going crowd-pleasers from Every Kingdom. This sombre trend continues throughout, but it’s not all slow and soft – ‘Rivers In Your Mouth’ and ‘In Dreams’ see Howard showing his dexterity in the speed of his picking whilst also using his guitar almost as a percussion instrument, providing a stark contrast with the droning bass and strings behind it in a way hardly seen in this genre since Laura Marling’s moody third album, A Creature I Don’t Know.

The album’s namesake, ‘I Forget Where We Were’, allows Howard’s voice to be heard in a way that he hasn’t really explored before – singing with the confidence and atmospheric control of a headliner in a large arena, before returning to his usual shy, soft tones in the bridge before each dramatic chorus. With this song, the move away from the acoustic, folky picking for which he is known, and towards a much more sophisticated layering of instruments is probably most obvious compared to the simple guitar-and-voice setup of Every Kingdom.

‘She Treats Me Well’ sees Howard heading in a new direction altogether, with cool and easy ringing guitar strings alongside a lively bass line in an intro similar to Wolf Alice’s ‘Heavenly Creatures’, all contrasting with his classic melodic tones harmonising with those of the backing vocals; this song is so chilled out with its almost vintage sound that it would be the perfect backing to a grainy film scene with an old-fashioned convertible car driving down a long, seemingly endless road. Even the following song, ‘Time Is Dancing’, wouldn’t feel out of place in an artsy indie film full of Instagram filters; it has a rare quality that only Ben Howard could achieve: with his hands dancing around the fret board of his trusty guitar, this song manages to feel both soporific and energising, as if it wants you to get up and start moving but isstill itself in a sleepy daze.

You leave this album feeling as though all your burdens have been lifted

‘Evergreen’ is possibly the only forgettable moment of the experience that is I Forget Where We Were; being the slowest and most depressing four minutes, it’s largely eclipsed by the lead single which follows it. End Of The Affair, despite being just under eight minutes long (allowing Howard to now hold the record of the longest song ever played on television show Later… With Jools Holland), is the clear winner on this album: after a tranquil build-up of almost five minutes, the calm solemnity unexpectedly crashes down in an epic, heavily goosebump-inducing moment, just as in Foals’s ‘Spanish Sahara’, and the guitar as percussion once again resurfaces to combine with strained cries of “Go to him/What the hell, love?/What the hell?”.

After the raucous sound of ‘End Of The Affair’, a much calmer and clearer sound emerges with ‘Conrad’ as the calm after the storm, and ‘All Is Now Harmed’ feeling like an appropriate ender to such a heavy and serious 54 minutes – despite its foreboding title and gloomy lyrics (“Pull me down, was I born to lie/Here at all?”), the mellow tones of Howard’s voice, accompanied once again by guitar echoes alongside the thumping of bongos (a surprisingly comforting sound), really lift the mood, ensuring you leave this album feeling as though all your burdens have been lifted.

I Forget Where We Were is much more sophisticated and serious (Howard has said himself that this album may even be “almost too serious”) than Every Kingdom; and with only ‘In Dreams’ being below four minutes in length, there is much more time for Howard’s technical expertise to build up within each track, but not in a way that you’re wanting anything to hurry; in fact, you want to savour the moment for as long as possible, which makes the clattering change feel that bit more satisfying. This is the result of Howard’s developing skills and sound within a genre which is often seen as reluctant to change, and it’s refreshing to see he hasn’t done the same as fellow man-with-guitar type Ed Sheeran by keeping this album a very private and intimate affair – but then who would expect anything else from the man who has said in the past that “The more attention I got, the less I wanted it”?