Whilst attempting to tame technology to do my bidding and failing quite miserably, I finally manage to take a tour on the dusty backroads of the internet where you usually find all the good things. Not the rain slicked, hyper coloured, shiny, kaleidoscope of colours, sights and sounds, where new shoes, husbands and pens can be bought and sold for the right price. No, not for me sir, not for me. For me, I enjoy the slower pace of the backroads, B roads, dirt tracks and desire paths that gently call you to their door to delight and amaze, all in the name of researching the subject of today’s lecture (and this is if it is anything, a lecture) the band healthyliving. Let’s be honest gentle readers, we’re not wedded to this wonderful genre of all things heavy and delightful because it was popular, nope, there has (for me anyway) the perverse delight in liking something that has the element of the outlaw, the different and the challenging. Something other worldly, dangerous, complicated, unapologetic, and fanciful. It reminds me of a conversation I had last year at a wedding of one of my best mates. His new wife and family had all flown over to the UK from the US of States, and we were sitting at the tail end of the dinner, a few glasses of wine down as I waited to take to the stage to deliver a rambling, incoherent and slightly self-indulgent speech that at the very least I thought was amusing. Steeling myself for the worst, a member of the party whom I was sitting next to, decided this was the time to tell me she couldn’t understand why I liked the music I did (as does the groom) as it was a just a noise. Now that might be true, and I should (in hindsight) decided that discretion was the better part of valour but no, I eschewed the path of the righteous and instead, I tuned slowly in my chair and told her that I was glad she didn’t like ‘my type of music’ and that was why I liked it. Churlish, rude, scene grandstanding and gatekeeper behaviour? Yes, yes and yes. Do I stand by it? You betcha and its bands such as Edinburgh’s healthyliving (spell checking’s worst nightmare) with this their debut album that sum up what I mean.

This is a delicate and ethereal blend of strong-armed guitars that float on the breeze carried on a floral bucket of drums carried in a papoose of shimmering vocals courtesy of vocalist Amaya López-Carromero (who also performs as Maud the Moth in other musical endeavours). Its pace varies throughout the album, rushing along at times, before opening a gate to poppy inflamed fields to lay down under its suffocating bouquet to dwell in the space between worlds. It creaks and groans under its own weight at times, a dense blanket of layered guitars that swarm like sandwich crazed seagulls on Fistral Beach in Newquay, before collapsing into maudlin and misanthropic territories, like a sung eulogy in the rain at your Grandad’s funeral. It’s deep, dark and dense, yet somehow manages to carry an uplifting spirit throughout the album’s running time. It feels like a chore at times before you suddenly realise that you’re having the time of your life. It has a post indie feel to it, like The Smiths playing Spotlights covers through Russian Circles backline. It has a rough and ready feel to it, not too polished but gargantuan sounding. It resides in the crustier, darker potholes of late 80’s indie whilst having just enough modern metal/doomgaze sensibilities to it. There are invariably going to be comparisons, to Julie Christmas’s work with Cult of Luna and if that might sound like lazy misogyny, it’s certainly not meant to be. It certainly has much in common with that genre and style of music and when the tempo increases, the kernel of the band is revealed. This is a dense and multi faceted body of work that finagles its way into your good graces and would not appeal to those that don’t understand what good music sounds like. That said it may be the compressed and long form mood building crescendos of the slower songs that lend the faster, punkier aspects of the album the bite, context and grit that make the album such a well-rounded, captivating, and engaging listen. That this is the Scottish trio’s first album, beggars’ belief such is the quality of the song writing, playing and production. healthliving, have created an album of real imagination and depth and if this is any indication of the next wave of UK based bands operating within this genre arena, then things look very encouraging indeed.

(8.5/10 Nick Griffiths)

https://www.facebook.com/healthylivingband

https://healthylivingband.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-abundance-psalms-of-grief