All the best love songs are about heartache and Windy & Carl have seized on that. The latest addition to their canon was recorded at the same time as Windy Weber’s solo album I Hate People (released earlier this year) and unlike the sentiments of Weber’s solo album, this is an album about love. Although this is the idea of love that Lord Tennyson famously wrote: “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
In referring to this album, Weber writes:”This is an album about love. Everyone has known love, and everyone has known loss. Love is not just about warm fuzzy feelings, although that would be the part people say they like the best. And in any span of time, love changes and means different things to different people.” This album certainly captures the less savoury aspects of love (although track titles like “My Love,” “Forever” and “Champion” are misleading) and there is a palpable sense of anguish here and a bittersweet mood runs through the album’s ten songs. Windy & Carl are never anything if not sombre but Songs for the Broken Hearted is particularly solemn. Vocals feature prominently on this album but are always hushed and deferent to the feel of the songs. Each line is like an element of a dream, difficult to keep in mind after it has passed. Weber’s voice on “My Love” sounds like it is calling from the inner recesses of a memory long crumpled up into a ball and thrown into the farthest corner of the mind; distant yet familiar.
Like 2005’s Dedications to Flea, Windy & Carl tug at the heartstrings using the same approach to guitars that they also use to bring contentment. The sustained guitar notes that they are famed for swirl together to make a dirge for love, the guitar and bass coming together to sound like a mighty harmonium. The album’s highlight, “Snow Covers Everything,” takes all the usual Windy & Carl elements but it resonates even more powerfully than usual (both in acoustic and emotional senses of resonance). I tend to love everything I hear from these two but “Snow Covers Everything” is remarkable even by their standards. From the vocals right down to the twinkling bells, there is not an element in this song that does not sound perfect.
Songs for the Broken Hearted is a haunting addition to an already spectral back catalogue. Windy & Carl continue to impress and move me with their music (and I cannot see that changing in the future). The genuineness of their feelings and beliefs is always apparent in their music, something which separates them from other artists exploring the same tones and approaches to guitar craft. It is possible to connect with their sentiments on a real level when listening to their albums and this is true to a larger extent than normal on Songs for the Broken Hearted. I do not know if I can listen to this album often but I know it will leave a mark every time I hear it.
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