POWDER DRY

The pivoting eclecticism on the latest Tim Bowness album is an underrated musical gift from 2024, a year full of surprises and excellent releases all throughout, and it is 'Powder Dry' that really stands out among "solo" albums as a very self-aware journey exhibiting not only the unique vocal style of Bowness but also his songwriting prowess as he is in control of the entire work. This has to be a semi-conceptual album that reflects a lot of current issues, including communication, love, and depression among other things, made up of sixteen short fragments in the form of musical ideas developed as vignettes that cover a tremendous array of genres and techniques, ultimately reflecting the instinctive interests of the creator. You will hear acoustic melancholic pieces as well as washes of synth-pop and electronica, among nuances of stomping and cold mechanical bruise with distorted guitars and spacious percussion.

This really is an expansive, career-defining work that is just formally informed by its predecessor 'Butterfly Mind', but it develops much more organically as the listener is bombarded with so many ideas and moods that 'Powder Dry' would require repeated listens in order to be fully understood. And with mixing works and creative advice from Steven Wilson, Bowness had created a post-No-Man piece of art that takes in all the different aspects of the author's musical identity and reproposes them in the form of almost impressionistic canvas of sounds - this is, of course, reflected by the vibrant artwork. Most pieces on here are around the two-minute mark, with just one song clocking in at five minutes. Among the more intriguing offerings you might discover the sturdy opener 'Rock Hudson', the joyous and emotive 'Summer Turned', the haunting 'Films of Our Youth', the cathartic title track, or even the acoustic 'This Way Now'. Fantastic stuff from start to finish; you can take bits and pieces of it out or you can listen to the whole thing all at once, it always works rather beautifully.