Tender indie-folk evocation of grief and hope.
Massachusetts-based “writer song-singer” Heather Maloney returns to the fray with her first LP in five years and the 7th (or 8th?) since her 2009 self-released debut CD. The new record represents Maloney’s response to the death of her father in 2021 and in that sense it is an intensely introspective, poignant and exposed piece of work. Every note and every word of ‘Exploding Star’ is suffused with the echo of Maloney’s vast personal grief and yet at the same time it manages to bloom with budding hope and courage.
A portion of ‘Exploding Star’ was tracked by Maloney and significant long-time collaborators Isabella DeHerdt and Isaac Eliot (AKA High Tea) in her childhood New Jersey family home, which, during preparation for the album, she discovered was abandoned and empty. Maloney found the house largely unaltered from her time there and overrun with resonances and intense memories of moments spent there with her father. She has affectingly observed how these reverberations were formative for the record in the emotionally charged way that the recordings “captured the space, the feeling of being there…” and suggested that “the sound … says so much that the lyrics cannot. When the feelings are that big, words fall short”.
As well as recording (at least partially) in the space that her parents had created Maloney also played some of her father’s instruments (and even the house itself as percussion) on ‘Exploding Star’. This entanglement with the physical remnants of her dad’s existence is palpable throughout the record. And with many of the lyrics seeming to communicate Maloney’s feelings and questions directly to her absent father, it almost leads to a feeling that the listener is intruding on a personal moment in time between the two of them.
She is evidently processing her feelings when she asks “Are you floating in the cosmos, finally free from time” and “Should I be looking for your message in cloud-shapes, snowflakes”. And when further remembering that “you still rolled the windows down, you still ran the bases ‘round, your dark hair blowing all around”. In the final track ‘Leave it to Them’, one of those recorded in the vacant New Jersey home, Maloney sings of retrieving formative memories and of new experiences embodying her father. The lyric “Leave it to the scrubs you wore to see me in when I came to this world” telling of the moment she found and tried on the hospital clothing her farther had worn the day that she was born.
Even when Maloney is ostensibly writing about other ‘characters’ it is clear she is effectively communicating with her father. ‘Angelfish’ is a reflection on Mark Twain which emerged from her watching a Ken Burns Documentary. In the song she notes of Twain that “Your famous wit is laced with pain, your humour hides the bitter taste, the world’s amused but who could sense your sorrow?” a couplet that is also a direct allusion to her father who “possessed such an incredible blend of sorrow and humour”.
Across ‘Exploding Star’ as a whole Maloney seems to be less concerned about what grief is or feels like and is more attentive to how we process it and how it changes us. ‘Exploding Star’ is like the aftermath of grief, which is perhaps no surprise given the time it has taken Maloney to process her experiences / feelings and to communicate them in song form. The fact that its release comes nearly 4 years after her father’s death is also an indication that the songs were not originally intended for public consumption; Maloney writing them as a way to ease her private pain and considering them too “vulnerable” for a wider airing. That they finally get an actual release is down to the family and friends who convinced her that sharing them might also help others who were grieving.
Maloney presents her reflections in largely gentle and introspective musical settings that are performatively appealing if perhaps sonically undemonstrative. On the whole the songs are just about sufficiently melodically memorable to engage our attention, though they are so similar in tone and pace as to occasionally seep from one to another without the listener noticing. As might be expected, given their genesis, the songs on ‘Exploding Star’ are generally tender ballad paced acoustic lamentations. They lean heavily towards folk roots with a sheen of singer-songwriter lustre. Artists such as Devon Sproule, Laura Veirs, Josienne Clarke or Dar Williams provide a kind of indie-folk aural template for the music on ‘Exploding Star’. Although the ‘indie’ element, regularly present on earlier records, is dialled down here – it is definitely more Caroline Spence than Aimee Mann.
There are occasional flashes of indie muscle flexing that just about manage to take the record somewhere else; the coda to ‘Exploding Star’, the layered harmonies over chunky guitar chords on ‘Oh My Green’ or the cracked electric guitar fills on ‘Light You Leave Behind’ for example. For the most part though the LP needs something sharper, edgier to hook us in. Its overall sonic somnambulance demands effort, which for such an undemonstrative record is a problem. If / when we do put the work in it can feel like we are intruding on something that is not really meant for us, something too painfully personal. Maybe this fits with the notion that this music was not created for public consumption in the first instance.
If the music can occasionally lack a necessary character, the same cannot be said of the voice(s) here. The voice is the main character on this record, not just Maloney’s beautiful instrument but also the harmonies of High Tea and even down to the ‘choir’ almost imperceptibly humming the melody of ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’ at the end of ‘Angelfish’. Maloney’s vocals are hugely skilful and emotionally expressive. Her control is phenomenal and yet she manages to be agile and lithe as the song demands. The vocals delivered on ‘Exploding Star’ serve the songs perfectly, at once soaring then intimate, confessional or declamatory. Always totally in control but on the verge of collapse. They couldn’t fit the resonance of the songs any better. Her jazz and opera vocal training is evident in every breath.
Ultimately ‘Exploding Star’ leaves an overarching resonance of warm and tender lover and hope, which is no mean feat for a record with its genesis in such sad circumstances. Its tonal, temporal and melodic consistency (or similarity if you’re being unkind) throughout does not detract from the poignant and tender effect of the record, though it does perhaps limit its ultimate impact.
