Time is not linear. It expands and contracts through the lens of individual and collective experiences. Pavey Ark are intimately aware of this, having released their first album just as the pandemic shut down the world. With the release of More Time, More Speed, Neil Thomas details how time stretches, contracts and warps our perceptions. Straight lines only exist on a clock. Our lives are shaped by forces that measure differently. Concepts like the future and the past are affected by treasured memories, love, loss, beginnings and endings.
Armed with Thomas on acoustic guitar, along bassist Johnny Hamilton, Sam Handley on drums, and Chris Heron, Vicky Berry and Alex Simpson on violins, the band is rounded out with Kieren Iannidinardi and Simon Neligan on trumpet, plus Sophie Iannidinardi on sax. This unique makeup creates a rare blend, while rooted in folk, leads in directions that shift and turn. Their musical palette shades songs with an unending array of shades that defy expectations.
On the song ‘More Time, More Speed’, Thomas finds himself apologising to his wife for spending so much time away from home recording the first album. Then he went and spent even more time recording the follow up. Equally striking, ‘Yesterday is Done’ begins with a string quartet before he offers another lyrical apology as the first words out of his mouth are, “I’m sorry…” What follows, however, is more about looking for new beginnings and letting go of the past. Musically the song’s combination of strings and guitars gently pushes and pulls, gracefully playing with conventions while tugging heartstrings.
‘Epoch’ is a tale to two halves, commenting on humanity’s impact on the planet. Amidst the strain of strings and horns, along with the acoustic guitar, Thomas sings, “Here comes the falling sky/ Did you ever see the stars so bright?” The pacing slows down in the second half of the song as marvel and beauty is replaced by apathy and denial, “It’s not me it’s them, with the hand of the devil.”
Time’s elastic nature sees the world returning to a more normal pace on ‘The Go Slow’, emerging from the self-imposed cocoon of winter. A sense of reassurance inhabits the song, knowing that just when things are at their darkest and the winds blow their coldest, better days appear on the horizon. “The sun is always rising somewhere.” A reassuring thought as the cold winds begin to blow.
Moments of magic and majesty prevail making Pavey Ark a band impossible to pin down and one of the leading lights on the scene today. More Time, More Speed is the sound of band sure of their footing, stepping bravely beyond tides and trends.