After two original albums and an EP released last year, Urze de Lume, a Portuguese Neo / Dark Folk quartet, have returned in this past March with another long play. And what an album it is!
This is their second and final chapter of an ode to autumn. The melancholy, the loneliness, the departure, but also the homecoming, are the feeling evoked through the music journey that is this record from start to finish. It is not difficult for the listener to dwell in contemplation and to evoke in his memories past personal events. The cross between acoustic themes with the declamation as well as, sometimes, the subtle whisper of the lyrics, allied with some traditional instruments like the Rabel, the Campaniça guitar, the Mirandesa bagpipe or even some wind instruments are the sublime highlights that bring the magic of the band’s music to life. They give the songs a more folk and traditional projection, leading us to witness a search for the past Portuguese traditions that have been lost in time, and the search to recover them.
Nature and Man walk side by side, and for those who know well the reality of the interior of Portugal, this album has a different value and meaning. We are easily transported to the Portuguese high regions of the “Beira Alta” or “Trás os Montes”, and we can imagine without effort that we are in a grazing zone where the sheep graze joyfully rattling their rattles and bleat in the company of the guard dogs, such is the richness and the colourful picture painted by the music.
In short, this is for sure one of the best albums in this genre that saw the light of day in recent years.
9/10
About Urze de Lume:
Review by João Osório
Managing Editor: Rita Limede
Comments are closed.