The Honey Trees are Jacob Wick and Becky Filip – a brilliant boyfriend + girlfriend Dream-Pop duo who at first glance, look like Taylor Lautner with better hair, and Florence Welch‘s prim younger sister. Like they are seriously beautiful… What? You aren’t going to just listen to them because they look like models and I should actually write a proper album review which discusses the quality of their music? Fine.
The good looking folks from The Honey Trees deliver an album full of sweet harmonies and hypnotic melodies on their debut Bright Fire.
It was just after I started writing for Happy that I began racking my brains trying to think of artists to write about and remembered The Honey Trees who I had sadly neglected to keep tabs on. I stumbled across these guys around two or three years ago when they covered the Henry Mancini classic: Moon River in a Lo-Fi session which was way cool. I was keen as beans to see what they’d been up to so I Googled and was rewarded with a debut album titled Bright Fire which was released back in April.
Ours is the first track on the record and at just over 2 minutes, it evokes the feeling of falling down a rabbit-hole into a strange and wonderful land. Starting off slow with only Becky’s dulcet vocals, minimalistic piano chords and the drone of synths in the background; the song proceeds to grow in dynamics with strains of violins and Jacob’s added harmonising vocals, and then all at once it ends. It does a brilliant job of leading you in and the rest of the album effortlessly holds your attention, overwhelming your ears, your mind and your heart.
The album varies from track to track, with songs Like a Thousand Stars and Nightingale which are happy, feel-good pop confections with a retro ’60s French Baby-Pop feel to them. Siren another one of my favourites (all the songs are my favourite, I’m just choosing the ones with the easiest music techniques to analyse…) is over 5 minutes but honestly, is not exhausting to listen to. Just like Wild Winds it has a Shakespearean tone to it, rising and falling in dynamics with orchestral swells which create in your mind a hazy vision of tempestuous seas, lovesick sailors and bewitching sirens.
If you have read up to here, I congratulate you*. I have been particularly verbose today and I’m not a bit sorry for it! From the the first track – a mystifying caress which draws you in, to the last – an inspirational and uplifting anthem; Bright Fire will not disappoint. It is a Greek epic, it is a Shakespearean tragedy AND comedy, it is a pastiche of the Romantic and Classical age in art, literature and music!… Am I overselling it? Probably, but it means I care about it a lot. It’s really hard to create a whole album which I enjoy this much. Honey Trees, thanks for all the feels.
*Your editor has.
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