Midlake - The Courage of Others (2010)

1) Acts of Man; 2) Winter Dies; 3) Small Mountain; 4) Core of Nature; 5) Fortune; 6) Rulers, Ruling All Things; 7) Children of the Grounds; 8) Bring Down; 9) The Horn; 10) The Courage of Others; 11) In the Ground

Is it classic folk rock romanticism anymore when it's all so bleak and dark? Warm acoustic tones meet impenetrable sadness.

Key tracks: "Acts of Man", "Rulers, Ruling All Things", "Children of the Grounds"

Pray for all to end / And silence be all / Now the joy has burned out and it’s gone / But I don’t know where

If Midlake albums were a continuous tale, here’s what the story so far would be. A group of people decided to abandon the trappings of modern life and the mysterious monocle men of Bamnan and Slivercork, shedding away modern technology and finding a new peaceful existence in the wild frontiers. The Trials of Van Occupanther would tell their story - of a rural life not without its hardships, but more idyllic in its harmonious, natural way. The Courage of Others brings with it the darkest winter. The cold world is cruel and where once were many, now only some remain. In the middle of the forest, huddled around a lonely campfire, a group of men sing sad laments, knowing in their hearts they’ll likely never see the spring again.

The Courage of Others mostly continues where The Trials of Van Occupanther left off with its rootsier folk rock revival inspiration, but nonetheless there’s a huge gap between the two albums in how that sound is approached. The general feel is once again intimate and warm in its core but rich and layered in its arrangements, but this time the music’s heart has been covered by an impenetrable bleakness: not enough to be a thoroughly dark album but there is next to no hope or joy found here. The lyrics are filled with laments for lost opportunities and a desire for things to either change to something else completely or to simply just end, and the music seems to have never even heard of a major chord. The lush strings and horns of Van Occupanther are gone and replaced with a lone flute, quietly singing sorrowful melodies throughout the album while the sparingly used, piercing electric guitars and the band’s now-trademark layered vocal harmonies push the momentum onwards. It’s an album that has lost sight of the light at the end of the tunnel and sounds understatedly gorgeous as it fumbles around in the dark.

It is, unsurprisingly, a slow burner of an album. The Courage of Others is not an album of big stand-out moments like “Roscoe” or “Balloon Maker”, or even ones that make a bigger splash within the album itself. “Acts of Man” distills the essence of the album in its very first three minutes so effectively that you could claim it’s the album’s signature moment, and the (relative) energy and more notable electric guitar use of “Children of the Grounds”, “The Horn” and “Rulers, Ruling All Things” make them pop out by default, but by and far The Courage of Others doesn’t bother with instantly recognisable hits. The songs largely blend together into one, 40-minute tragic ballad, each sequence clearly distinct in their details but not enough for me to be able to associate them with the actual song names. The individual elements are all lovely - Tim Smith’s still-gorgeous voice, the masterful vocal harmonies, the intricate guitars, the perfectionistically arranged additional flourishes - but each song uses them so similarly that separating them from one another requires a lot of effort.

That slight non-descriptness of it all does deduct points away from the album and out of the original Midlake trilogy this is the obvious weak link. But don’t let that brush you away from it. The Courage of Others takes a long, patient time to work its charms but it eventually will - it’s not suitable for all occasions, but for a specific mood that begs for this kind of acoustic folk rock with a soul full of sorrow, it does the job most wonderfully. There’s a strange kind of comfort to its melancholy and a striking loveliness to its craft - something that will get completely lost in the wrong context. Given the attention and right mindset though, The Courage of Others reveals its strengths and what makes it unique from its two more universally lovable older siblings. Where it lacks in songwriting it emphasises the mood, and to Midlake’s credit they get fairly far with it.

Rating: 7/10