Steve Von Till is a creative tour de force: guitarist/vocalist/lynch pin of seminal post metal pioneers Neurosis plus their experimental offshoot Tribes Of Neurot; curator and founder of the essential Neurot Recordings label; spell-binding psych-folk magic maker under the guise of Harvest Man; and writer of soul mining acoustic songs on his solo recordings. Whatever the form there’s a devotion and rigour about his craft and an almost incessant drive to keep up his artistic momentum.
With last year taken up with a triptych of expansive albums as Harvest Man each coinciding with a new phase of the moon, Von Till might have been expected to take a sabbatical and re-charge, but no. He’s just announced the release of Alone In A World Of Wounds on 16th May, the seventh solo work in his own name. Following on from the slow core neo-classical drama of No Wilderness Deep Enough and its instrumental sister release A Deep Voiceless Wilderness three years ago, Alone In A World Of Wounds promises songs with the same melodic strength but more natural simplicity. Gothic Americana peeled back to its deeper soul.
The album’s lead single ‘Watch Them Fade’ thrums with gravitas. A simple, sombre song but with the vastness that Von Till brings to his music, it revolves around no more than a minimal piano pattern, a soft heartbeat pulse and the circling grace of watchful strings. His voice is the focal point here, resonant, wise and as distinctive as Lanegan or Gira, the instrument of a natural story-teller. Every line is considered and delivered with gentle authority, a poetic flow that carries you along with its message.
Alone In A World Of Wounds is waiting, an album which promises to be significant in more ways than one.
Pre-order your copy of ‘Alone In A World Of Words’ by Steve Von Till from Neurot Recordings HERE
