Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Boy & Bear, Island Records 2019.
I have reviewed the last two Boy & Bear albums and I’ve waxed lyrical about the quality of the writing and sophistication of the music.
Waxed lyrical is a good descriptor for it is the sophistication of the lyrics in particular that first captures my attention.
I acknowledge that I’m a words man. here my wife and many of my friends only come to the lyrics after some extended period of listening (if at all) I instantly tune in to them.
This goes part of the way to explain my aversion to most hip-hop because I find it so difficult to hear what is being said.
This is a shame because often what is being vocalised is important.
The starting point for this album, the first in four years, was front man Dave Hosking’s diagnosis with Chronic Dysbiosis, a condition involving an imbalance of bacteria in the gut.
The title track paints a picture of what it was like for Dave to suddenly become unable to work on his writing because of chronic fatigue associated with his illness.
The symptoms first made an impact during the writing for their Limit Of Love album in 2015 and it wasn’t until 2018 that finally a diagnosis and treatment started to produce a major improvement.
That moment is captured in the song BSC.
Dave says: “We were working on that song at the time and I could feel the words and language starting to come… It was really exciting to pick up a pen and paper and not be terrified of it.”
Suck On Light is naturally the most personal of the four albums that the band has produced and it’s proof that something beautiful can come out of adversity.
From a point where the other band members were wondering if they would survive as a band, to the triumphant return with a new album that they are rightfully proud of is quite a journey.
They say that in the darkest moments great insights occur, or as Leonard Cohen put it “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” and that is the case with this delightful album.
It’s an album of contrasts, honesty, of light and darkness.
An album to be listened to and engaged with.