“I may not have a heart; I can never hear it beating.“
Looking back on Mad Honey‘s debut record, Satellite Aphrodite, it has that familiar feeling of summers of old. Their warm shoegaze sound, touched with dream-pop moments, made for an ever comforting yet joyous listen. Even listening back to it ahead of their sophomore release, the upbeat tones of “Fold” or the expansive guitar solos of “Psycho“, has the air the summers everyone was chasing during that moment in time of 2023. As the years move on, life comes back into perspective, leaving the mind looking back at times rather than forward. This is where Mad Honey‘s sophomore record, Bridge over Cumberland, now seems to sit. Mulling on the faded friendships of old or failed romances, each leaving remnants of memory in both the mind and the spaces of our lives.
The shift in tone quickly becomes evident as “I Am a Wall, I Am a House“, the squeaks on the acoustic guitar assert the human sensibilities that Bridge over Cumberland is going to put forward, with nothing hidden by production values. The musing of “I am older now, I see things differently“, further asserts the shift in perspective and the journalistic mannerisms feeling akin to that of what Emma Ruth Rundle produced on Engine of Hell. This isn’t to say Mad Honey’s sophomore record is one that entirely lives in this quieter and reflective state, as hardy strum ‘gaze guitars soon show themselves on “James Get His Rose“, while the pop side of their sound proved itself once again on single “Reaching“. The haze and fuzz of their sound has a weight to that perhaps wasn’t present before, leading the ear through its sound rather than one to get lost within its whimsical nature like before.
The opening foray of Bridge over Cumberland, with the vast majority of these tracks clocking in run times somewhere between two and three minutes. It doesn’t let Mad Honey‘s sound settle too much, at times leaving the motifs present on the likes of “Somehow” coming and going without too presence, even as the lines of “You’re just like anybody in periphery, you are somehow seeping” do stick themselves into the ear. There is a shift as the ethereal air of “Past Together Isn’t Presence” fills itself out, as the repeat clean chords giving it that pondering and reflective sense. The line “It’s like you’ve died, but you’re standing right in front of me” touching on the grief that occur with the loss of interpersonal relationships and the repeat lines of “You are enough” and “I’m on the run” giving to the daze that can happen within it all.
What the likes of “Moshfeghian” do perhaps show, as opener “I Am a Wall, I Am a House” did too, is that Mad Honey are moving their sound into different spaces. Hints of post-rock are weaved into between the moments of melancholy, as the cymbals crash and the gargantuan guitar riff hits, before moving back into the quieter moments like the flow of a tide. Mad Honey‘s sound on the latter half of the record is a coin flip to what came before, giving a sense that “Natchez Trace Parkway” acts more of a transition rather than merely an interlude. As “Marie’s Song” and “Twelve Boyfriends” are intricate, almost indie folk, musings of the mind. The motif of “Twelve Boyfriends” in “Do you see me?” sits in the track, as the guitars pluck away on their chords with a daydream sense.
The eyebrow raiser of Bridge Over Cumberland will be its closing self-titled track, which clocks in at just under 10 minutes. Yet it’s where vocalist Tuff Sutcliffe digests and explores all the feelings and thoughts that have come before on the record, while giving a farewell of sorts. As the lines of “We wrote what we had, and we scratched in an ending” touch on the closing of relationships, and then where they occurred on “They remember what once was, and they’ll always think of us long after we’re both gone“. The closing entry of Bridge Over Cumberland is a lengthy one that, that ruminates on what has come before, somewhat akin to the latest work of Ethel Cain.
Sitting alongside Satellite Aphrodite, it gives Bridge Over Cumberland further pertinence. Rather than isolated works, the sense of each documenting the experiences and emotions of a moment in time. With Mad Honey‘s ability to convey these through their sound and lyricism, whether it’s the glistening shoegaze or slowcore melancholy, Mad Honey have the ability and talent to create that connection. It is one that at first may go unnoticed but as a new layer is unveiled to the ear with each listen, it soon shows itself. While the time should be taken to appreciate Mad Honey’s work here, it’s difficult for the mind to not wonder what the next entry will have in stock.
