ALBUM REVIEW: Ane Brun – How Beauty Holds The Hand of Sorrow

Balloon Ranger Records

Released: 27.11.20

Part two of a two-album companion piece, How Beauty Holds The Hand of Sorrow sees Ane Brun move into a slightly darker, slightly more serious, mindset to last month’s After The Great Storm. Full of deeply introspective, highly emotive, symphonies, Brun fills the album with a variety of musical textures all of which fit together through a common theme (heartbreak) and a common voice (Brun’s soaring, almost theatrical, deliveries).

Opener Last Breath, with its Spirtualized-styled sweeping orchestra, steals the album, though Closer and Gentle Wind of Gratitude, with their moments of piano minimalism and down-tempo electronics, provide evidence that it’s not necessarily the musical environment which stands out, but rather Brun’s performance style and central narrative.

Ambitious, varied and explorative; what a wonderful record.