NO solo album from Ben Watt in the 31 years since his North Marine Drive debut in 1983, then along come two in quick succession.
Nine Everything But The Girl records, DJing, running a record label and writing two memoirs kept him off the streets, but Watt has found his solo mojo in fine working order, first on 2014's Hendra and now Fever Dream, another studious, serious record of middle-aged rumination, jazz-poked folk and melancholic rock.
By his side is Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, his aide in "making spontaneous, ardent, unsentimental music" in a small room with a small band. Watt talks of a harder edge to these self-produced recordings, and that applies to lyrics as the sonic palette alike.
Prompted by friends falling apart and his own relationships being tested, Watt has created detailed snapshots of "how love shifts over time, what endures and how we cope". Fever Dream duly progresses from the darkness of Gradually and Between Two Fires to the bright light of New Year Of Grace.
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