“I may not have a heart; I can never hear it beating.“
Looking back on Mad Honey‘s debut record, Satellite Aphrodite, invokes 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” have the air that everyone was chasing during that moment in 2023. As the years move on, life comes back into perspective, leaving the mind looking backward, rather than forward. This is where Mad Honey‘s sophomore record, Bridge over Cumberland, now seems to sit. It mulls over 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 over-production. 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 inviting one to get lost within its whimsical nature.
During opening foray of Bridge over Cumberland, the vast majority of the tracks clock in 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” stay in the ear. There is a shift as the ethereal air of “Past Together Isn’t Presence” fills itself out, as repeating clean chords give it that pondering and reflective sense. The line “It’s like you’ve died, but you’re standing right in front of me” touches on the grief that occurs with the loss of interpersonal relationships, and “You are enough” and “I’m on the run” give in 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, 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. “Marie’s Song” and “Twelve Boyfriends” are intricate, almost indie folk, musings of the mind. The motif of the latter, “Do you see me?“, sits perfectly in the track, as the guitars pluck away on their chords in a daydream.
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 an opus that may enchant fans of Ethel Cain‘s finales.
Sitting alongside Satellite Aphrodite, Bridge Over Cumberland is given further pertinence. They are not isolated works, yet they each document the experiences and emotions of a moment in time. Mad Honey‘s ability to convey these through their sound and lyricism is strong, whether it’s the glistening shoegaze or slowcore melancholy. These are details that at first may go unnoticed, but as a new layer is unveiled to the ear with each listen, the record truly unfolds. 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.
