According to my 21st Century page, I wrote fifty-nine reviews of contemporary music from 2011-2014. If I had tallied all the times I had listened to any of those albums after reviewing them, Tree Bursts in Snow would have appeared at the top of the list . . . by a wide margin.

My style in those early days of the blog was “make it short and simple.” On average, I published three reviews a week while holding a full-time job. Consequently, many of those reviews were superficial, similar to those on “music consumer” websites. While most of the contemporary albums I reviewed didn’t deserve more than a cursory glance, a few warranted a more thorough and thoughtful approach—especially Tree Bursts in Snow.

But before we explore this marvelous record, I’ll answer the question on the minds of many in my American-centric audience: “Who the hell are Admiral Fallow?”

*****

According to Wikipedia, “Admiral Fallow are a Scottish musical group formed in 2007 by singer-songwriter Louis Abbott and based in Glasgow.” They started life as the Brother Louis Collective, changing their name shortly before the release of their first album. Unlike Jethro Tull, a real person who invented the seed drill, “Admiral Fallow” was something band member Sarah Hayes happened to come up with during the always challenging process of coming up with a band name. Between 2007 and 2021, they released four albums; Tree Bursts in Snow is the second.

The five members (and their roles on Tree Bursts in Snow) are as follows:

• Louis Abbott: guitars, vocals
• Kevin Brolly: clarinet, key, piano, vocals
• Phil Hague: drums, percussion, vocals
• Sarah Hayes: flute, piano, keys, accordion, vocals
• Joe Rattray: bass, vocals

Louis wrote nearly all the lyrics, and all the members collaborated in the creation of the music.

The genre geeks have had a difficult time slotting Admiral Fallow into a category. I’ve seen “indie folk,” “indie pop,” “alt-rock,” and “Celtic folk.” Having listened to all four albums, I vote for “none of the above.” The lyrics are too rich to qualify as “pop,” the instrumentation contains hints of folk but you rarely hear a clarinet in a folk band (Celtic or not), and while alt-rock captures the surprising power in their music, Admiral Fallow sounds nothing like R.E.M., the Replacements or Stone Temple Pilots. One might classify their music as “art rock,” but the band shows little in the way of pretentiousness. “Indie-folk-rock-power band with a dash of Radiohead” is the closest I could come up with but I’m not particularly happy with that label (or any other, for that matter).

Enough with the slotting! Tree Bursts in Snow offers a diverse yet thoroughly unified set of songs featuring engaging vocal and instrumental arrangements, a world-class rhythm section and exceptional emotive power.

When Admiral Fallow announced the album’s pending release, Louis explained that “the title refers to the sound and the image of an artillery shell exploding into a cluster of snow-drenched trees . . . I’m also astounded by the sheer volume of gun-related violent crimes throughout the world, but in particular in the U.S. The lyric from ‘Tree Bursts’ was inspired by the idea of the effect that losing friends through violence, in particular during times of war or conflict, has on young men and women. They are ‘the leaves that fall louder than backfire, all orange and Halloween red’ . . .”

While his commentary explains the title track and one of the overriding themes, Tree Bursts in Snow is much more than Louis let on. The album poses a question that every person on the planet needs to ponder: “What the hell are we doing with our lives, both individually and collectively?”

*****

Words by Louis Abbott, music by Admiral Fallow except where noted.

“Tree Bursts”: The song opens with what sounds like synthesized Morse Code communicating urgency, soon joined by muffled voices in the background. A four-note piano figure cues an acoustic guitar repeating a two-note pattern that shifts to 3/4 (or 6/8) to introduce the vocals. The structure and content of the lyrics tell us that the opening scene takes place at a munitions manufacturer or a gun dealer’s shop, with Sarah in the role of protestor while Louis plays the part of a gun violence victim. In this stage, both Sarah and Louis sing gently, with Sarah intensifying the melancholy in Louis’s vocals through wordless vocal counterpoint:

Sarah: “We came here to ask if you’d stop selling them.”
Louis: “My body is broken and bruised/My body is broken and bruised.”

The use of the term “press-ganged” in the second verse tells us that the victim is a draftee, forced into combat against his will. Bass, drums and percussive piano enter on Louis’s lines, imbuing the words with a heavy burden:

Sarah: “We came here to ask if you’d stop selling them.”
Louis: “We’ve been press-ganged and hurriedly held/We’ve been forgotten quicker than felled.”

No particular conflict is mentioned, but that hardly matters. Human beings make war all the time; the old send the young to early graves; those who have no friends or family members in the service pay scant attention to the casualty lists.

At this point, the piano repeats the opening figure, cueing the chorus. Louis raises his voice, the intensity further enhanced by an echo effect as he paints a vivid picture of the endless queue of nervous recruits herded into the battlefield and the horrible colors of violent death:

And you’re taken aback by
The length of the list you’ve been thrown on
The tailback of timorous souls who’ve
Been dropped on the grey road from branches
The leaves that fall louder than backfire,
All orange and Hallowe’en red
On a beautiful road.

I love that brief closing line, a reminder of the environmental destruction that no one thinks about when they talk about war.

The next scene takes place in the United States, where the gun lobby makes sure that manufacturers will never face the consequences of providing millions of Americans with firearms:

We came here to ask if you’d stop selling them
My calibre craters in skin
From the trouble I’ve found myself in

We came here to ask if you’d stop selling them
In the god-fearing home of the brave
As I crawl out the pram to the grave

Louis Abbott’s concerns regarding the rise in mass shootings in the United States were both valid and sadly prescient. The album was released on May 21, 2012, approximately seven months before the Sandy Hook massacre, where twenty children crawled out of the pram to the grave. Different sources use different definitions, but it’s safe to say that the USA has averaged anywhere from 200 to 500 mass shootings a year in the period covering 2015-2024, with school shootings edging out workplace shootings for the top spot. I had a hard time believing that other Americans did not follow my lead and get the hell out of that sick country after Sandy Hook, but the data tells me that Americans are a-ok with youngsters having to go through mass shooting drills and are likely to shrug off occasional massacres (as Jed Bush once said, “Stuff happens”). The idiotic response to gun violence has been to stockpile more weaponry. From Wikipedia: “In 2018, the Small Arms Survey reported that there are over one billion small arms distributed globally, of which 857 million (about 85 percent) are in civilian hands. The survey stated that USA civilians account for an estimated 393 million (about 46 percent) of the worldwide total of civilian-held firearms, or about 120.5 firearms for every 100 American residents. From 1994 to 2023, gun ownership increased by 28% in America.”

I said I’d never step foot in the United States until they got rid of their guns, so don’t expect to see my smiling face in the USA during our lifetimes. I feel so sorry for the children who have to deal with the failure of the grownups to do anything to protect them from the trauma of drills or violence itself. Childhood should be a time of innocence, not fear.

After a melancholy, reflective instrumental passage, the chorus is repeated with even greater intensity, followed by a brief segment where the words “It harks back to tree bursts in snow” are repeated four times over a rising instrumental build. The next instrumental offering has more of an edge, balancing the melancholy of the earlier instrumental passage with a mood evoking anger and frustration. The final rendition of the chorus is even edgier; you can hear the passionate impatience in Louis’s voice as he decries the human fetish with violence.

“Tree Bursts” is a daring opener that displays the band’s excellent musicianship and their superb work in power management. Many of the songs on the album involve dynamic variations on a scale between restrained and let-it-rip and all the steps in between, a far more sophisticated approach to dynamics than the soft-LOUD of the Pixies and the grunge movement—and one that links music to lyrical meaning.

“The Paper Trench”: Again displaying their complete command of dynamics, “The Paper Trench” opens like the proverbial bat out of hell, shifts to semi-stop time in the verses and bridge and moves back and forth between thunder and reflection.

The subject matter shifts from war to the dangers presented by wealth accumulation and the consequent concentration of power at the top of the economic ladder. According to Oxford Languages, one definition of “paper trench” is “a metaphor to describe a system where a specific group benefits unfairly at the expense of others” (it’s also used to describe bureaucracy). With Sarah providing spot-on harmonies, Louis describes the new breed of billionaires as extravagant, reckless spenders with identities no clearer than blurred images, with no tangible motive beyond accumulating riches and power:

All of the high rolling and the soft focus
Helps with the stockpiling of your wooden self
Only in high rolling and in soft focus
Do we ever ask, ‘Is there not more than this?’

Louis delivers the chorus in a tone I’ll call “passionate tongue-in-cheek” that always brings a smile to my face . . . even though I know that the meaning of the chorus will eventually emerge as something that isn’t the least bit funny:

Holy Moses and holy cow
My varicose roots are coming out

After another blast of ass-shaking power, we learn that Louis believes that these high-rollers are environmental destructionists who are not on our side. Gee! Who woulda thunk it?

It’s a trench and the cult and the culture it breeds
Only serves to feed one side and crush the rest
Those that siphon the green from the air that we breathe
To line fat pockets with the residue

The band takes it down a bit in the bridge, eventually ramping up the power to support the extended version of the chorus. Louis takes this opportunity to double down on the metaphor of dying trees, a symbol of our hell-bent march to self-destruction:

And we suffer in silent moth-balled fury
Trees that have long since shed their rings
As if to rub out the ball-point memory of a thousand sins

Holy Moses and holy cow
My varicose roots are coming out
And my sinew fingers throw them away
A ring per sin
A ring per sin

Sigh. Some listened to the scientists; others continued to accumulate riches and to hell with the environment. The thirteen billionaires Trump hired are fully committed to rolling back environmental protections, lifting bans on forever chemicals, opening more land to exploitation and embracing the motto, “Drill, baby, drill.” Now the faceless billionaires are exploiting the environment to build AI data centers at significant cost to ecosystems.

Holy cow, indeed.

“Guest of the Government”: I love the intro to this song, with Sarah and Louis trading off “ohs” in contrasting timing, like tiny pops of musical coloration. Their popping continues through two go-rounds, then the band checks in to supply more drive while expanding the chord pattern, giving the two vocalists a bit more room to apply new splotches of musical color. Magnifique!

The structure of the first half of “Guest of the Government” consists of two stories presented in verse-chorus form. The stories presented in the two verses involve completely different actions that lead to the same outcome, which is voiced in the chorus. The music in the verses is more laid-back, while the music in the chorus is driving rock ‘n’ roll enhanced by an amazing harmonic performance by Sarah (especially when she climbs the scale to the conclusion).

The first story is easy to decipher:

So you’ve tied your colours to the mast
Held up the white bag with the highest flag
Lock the bathroom door, boy, have a blast
Use the flush to justify the aftermath
The aftermath

There are three possible outcomes: death by overdose, drug rehab or prison. Fortunately, Louis decided not to go too dark and allowed the druggie to live. As U.K. health insurance does not cover rehab (they partner with private insurance companies), it’s off to the hoosegow!

Oh look now, you’re a guest of the government
Oh caught out peering over the parapet
Look now you’re a guest of the government

The character in the second story also winds up in jail, but in support of a more noble cause: trying to save the environment by tying himself/herself to a tree targeted for destruction in the name of progress:

So you’ve tied your colours to the tree
Try and bat back questions with certainty
Don’t forget your name though–that’s key
Let the flock take stock and curb the misery

The hope here is that the protestor got through to the flock, making the misery worth the effort. What follows are two back-to-back renditions of the chorus, with a slight change in lyrics in the second:

Oh look now, you’re a guest of the government
Oh lined up like a pale-faced president
Look now you’re a guest of the government

There are only three possibilities as to the identity of the “pale-faced president.” As “pale-faced” is a synonym for “lying sack of shit”—and because Trump would not ascend to the throne for four-and-a-half years—the candidates are Obama, Sarkozy and G.W. Bush. Obama sometimes engaged in spin, but the only guy who called him a liar was that asshole GOP representative during the State of the Union address. Sarkozy turned out to be a criminal, but he wasn’t charged with anything until well after leaving office. As I’m sure there was lingering disgust with G.W. in the U.K. because he justified the Second Iraq War by spreading untruths about Sadaam’s WMDs, I have to go with Bush.

Hey! That’s the first time I ever voted for a Republican!

The second half of the song features a new melody as Louis holds up a mirror to his generation, forming an underlying question: Do we really want to spend our lives in a perpetual state of same-o, same-o?

Look—it’s the eager barflies and the fashionably late
The tug between those who come to drink and those to create
By the end of the night it’s all been granted the old news shrug
And we all fall gently in a comfortable hug
And with both eyes on the watch and a trip to the baltic states
And the love slowly conquers like rust on a gate
Though the surface can scratch you and the colour can fade
It’s the feeling that starts in the tips of your toes as we rise up again
As we rise up again

The segment is immediately followed by a brief instrumental break spiced by those pops of vocal color, leading to two hard-driving versions of the chorus powered by the top-tier rhythm section of Phil Hague and Joe Rattray. In contrast to the chorus lyrics, the fade has the triumphant feel of rising up again.

“Beetle in the Box” (words by Jo Mango and Louis Abbott, music by Admiral Fallow and Jo Mango):

This song is based on philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thought experiment, commonly known as “The Beetle in the Box.”

What? You’re not up on your Wittgenstein? Well, I can’t blame you. Many philosophers are piss-poor writers engaged in an endless round of Trivial Pursuit, directing their arguments at other philosophers in language only they can understand (Sartre is a notable exception). If you’re into that kind of thing, you can read Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations No. 293 or a commentary on his thinking on the Evolutionary Philosophy Blog. Here’s my cut-to-the-chase, relevant-to-the-song interpretation of Wittgenstein, combining multiple sources:

Imagine that everyone in the world always carries around a box and no one is allowed to view the contents of anyone else’s box. Everyone refers to what’s inside as a “beetle,” and because we all call it a beetle, we assume that what is inside someone else’s box is just like what is in our box. The truth is we don’t really know what lurks inside another’s box:  it could be different, it could change over time, or the box could be empty. The problem is one of human communication and understanding, involving incorrect assumptions, the inaccuracy of language, and our tendency to hide our most private thoughts from others. When someone tells us they’re in pain, we translate it through our experience with pain, which may have an entirely different meaning. The relevant question posed by “Beetle in the Box” is “Can we ever really understand another person?”

Louis found the perfect collaborator in Jo Mango (nee Jo Collinson Scott), a singer-songwriter-music-therapist-lecturer who completed her Ph.D in Musicology in 2012, the year Tree Bursts in Snow was released. Jo also released an album that year called Murmuration (highly recommended) and talked about it in an interview with Fame Magazine:

There are quite a few themes in the album. It’s a distillation of a lot of things that I’ve been thinking about and pondering over the past few years . . . But I guess the main one is the nature of knowledge (can we ever really know someone or something?) and the role of language in how we know things or say things or communicate ourselves.

Set to a relaxed beat, “Beetle in the Box” explores the myriad challenges of human communication: self-protection, the Jungian shadow, parental expectations that skew one’s true desires, and the nagging feeling that we should be better than we think we are:

Hold your tongue the unwilling and the safe
Make your mark in your own tiny way
Your own miniature firework display for one

Fear of facing the shadow on the shore
Tied in knots and hung out on the backdoor
The ‘boy-done-good’ thoughts of valour and the all for one

The chorus sums up the problem as one involving twin vulnerabilities. One party is afraid to open up (“the box shakes in your hands”) while the other is confused but unwittingly opens the door to a possible solution: avoid assumptions, admit your inability to understand and express empathy for the other’s understandable reluctance to share what they have a hard time understanding themselves:

It’s the beetle in the box that shakes in your hands
And it’s formed out of feelings that I don’t understand
They’re mapped in the gaps and the spaces between
The worry of bearing the ghost in the machine

The “ghost in the machine” is another Wittgenstein-ism; the machine is the human body, and the ghost is consciousness. Ludwig makes another cameo appearance in the bridge with the reference to pain. He introduces #293 with two questions: “If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word “pain” means—must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?”

How do you feel pain? (Tremors through the floor)
How do you hear sound? (Tapping on the walls)
I wish I could feel it all

And that’s what it takes to understand another human being: a sincere effort to engage in honest dialogue without judgment or assumption.

“Old Fools”: While the thematic basis of the lyrics lies in the idiom “there’s no fool like an old fool,” an equally relevant morsel of language appears in the opening line—a word I had never encountered: “cleuks.” According to the Google Dictionary, “Cleuks” is the plural form of the Scots word ‘cleuk,’ which refers to a claw, hand, or grasp. It can also mean to claw, scratch, or dig the claws.”

My filthy mind immediately concluded that the song involved sexual intercourse . . . in this case, unsatisfying sexual intercourse:

You’ve got your cleuks in me
Our legs locked at right angles
Should scatter like pigeons
But I’ll stay here and make sweat with you
And kick my own guts out
Lose a pint of self-respect

Depending on the circumstances, casual sex can be enjoyable or exceedingly unpleasant. You know it’s unpleasant when guilt invades your spirit after orgasm. Apparently, Louis had more than one such encounter because old fools never learn:

Cry from the bedroom
Clean all the blankets
Spend your time wishing back an act that is thankless
And those old fools have got nothing on me

The music is appropriately dirge-like, the feeling of regret intensified by a four-piece string section, Kevin Brolly’s mournful clarinet and Louis’s self-blaming lyrics. Things turn even darker towards the end as the regrets turn into a death wish:

Now sink down your balsa wood box
In your chair like it was the dirt
I’m going home to certain death
To certain death

Those lines are followed by a pregnant pause. The next sound we hear comes in the form of Sarah’s flute, her well-executed bright notes lifting the cloud of regret. The lyrics turn into something more hopeful as Louis repeats the line, “It doesn’t have to be this way” four times before a reprise of the core arrangement and chorus. Louis then repeats the line “Those old fools have got nothing on me” three times, giving the impression that he is wrapping things up and ready to move on, but the lack of resolution to the root chord communicates ambiguity, not finality. The players all deserve gold stars and Louis gets an extra gold star for delving deep into a difficult subject.

“Isn’t This World Enough?”: While I doubt that most folks “in the god-fearing home of the brave” would cotton to this song, I find it moving and delightful.

A secular spiritual! Hooray!

Though true believers would deny the song’s status as a spiritual, “Isn’t This World Enough” fulfills most of the structural criteria. According to Worship Leader Magazine, “The centerpiece of a song is almost always the chorus—the hook that people want to hear again and again. It is crucial that a chorus has a powerful melody, matched with a well-crafted lyric. For a congregational worship song, the chorus has to be singable and memorable.” The song also features many of the trappings of a gospel number: angelic voices, comforting hums and a strong, steady beat that encourages listeners to clap in unison. The opening verse even validates certain aspects of some Christian faiths: the marriage rite, caring for the sick and (according to BillyGraham.org) the notion that we are all responsible for taking care of the world. “When we see the world as a gift from God, we will do our best to take care of it and use it wisely, instead of poisoning or destroying it.”

Love your husband and love your wife
Isn’t this world enough?
The gas that lets you live your life
Isn’t this world enough?
All those living in splendour and in sunshine
Isn’t this world enough?
Those who seek calm going under the knife
Isn’t this world enough?

The second verse veers far away from religious beliefs, dismissing rituals as form without substance and questioning the validity of evidence-less faith:

You’re searching for answers in clouds and under rocks
Isn’t this world enough?
You starch your collar and pull on Sunday socks
Isn’t this world enough?
You’re seeking tips of the cap from your superman
But isn’t this world enough?
You’ve just gone blind; you’re a human stopped clock
Isn’t this world enough?

In the toned-down closing verse, Louis reminds us of our collective responsibility to avoid turning our world into a garbage dump, advances the notion that a superbeing is unlikely to come to the rescue, and ridicules the modern ritual of advertising our religious or political beliefs on our automobiles. When the fuck has a bumper sticker changed anything? Let it go!

So love this vessel while you’re aboard
There will be no deposit back from a cosmic landlord
You don’t need to hang your hat on belief in bumper stickers
There will be no love lost just pull on that ripcord
Isn’t this world enough?

The song closes with a couplet that encourages listeners to appreciate the gift of life: “From your first exhale to your very last breath/Isn’t this world enough?” My take on the core message is that we need to extend the right to enjoy all that life has to offer beyond “all those living in splendour and in sunshine,” and collaborate to make the world a better place instead of waiting for Superman to come to the rescue.

“Brother”: The highlight of this piece is Phil Hague’s from-the-get-go energetic drumming that often evokes images of a fast-beating heart. The story involves a reconciliation between two brothers who have “not exactly been the best of brothers,” and while it appears they’ve made up and are engaged in some joint venture, there are too many details missing for me to join them in the celebration. Oh, well.

And now . . . on to the masterpiece.

“The Way You Were Raised”: The song that changed my partner’s life and made it possible for us to live and love together for the rest of our existence has nothing to do with romance and nothing to do with women. The specific events related in the story involve toxic masculinity, but the core message is universal. Every person on earth who reaches early adulthood is presented with an existential choice: do you succumb to the expectations of parents, traditions or current trends, or do you choose to forge your own path and become the real you?

The chord pattern is exceedingly simple, quite effective . . . and most of the chord sites get it wrong. The basic pattern is A-Dmaj7-F#m-Dmaj7-D with a shift to Bm-D in the transition. What makes it work is a combination of an accidental drone effect to increase the intensity (all the chords in the basic pattern carry the A note), the variation of chord pattern timing between the verses and chorus and the off-beat punctuation of electric guitar in the instrumental interludes.

The song opens with electric guitar, bass and drum providing the rhythms and the piano engaged in a repeated flurry of downward notes. In the second go-round, the piano gives way to Sarah’s warm flute counterpoint. When Louis begins his vocals, most of the instruments disappear except for an acoustic guitar playing the essentials of the chord pattern, shining the spotlight on Louis as he begins the tale:

‘What was that?’ as the stuff that I spout leaves my lips
There, a crack from behind from some cat with a death wish
And the twitch takes the trail south to my heels
To the homeless steel toe capped edge

Pub fights seem to be common all over the U.K. and Ireland, with insecure men spoiling for a fight to validate their manhood. The phenomenon was also covered in Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” where the young girl longing for a real city experience sings, “A couple of drunken nights rolling on the floor/Is just the kind of mess I’m looking for.” Those passages tell us that such behavior is traditional and expected, that the ritual is encouraged by crowds who love a good fight, and any man has the right to pummel another man who challenges his masculinity or makes a smart-ass comment that offends the target. Positively fucking insane . . . but expected.

Sarah returns in the interlude with her gorgeous flute, and as one fluist to another, I commend her touch and breath control. In the second verse + transition, our drunken hero somehow experiences an epiphany:

And though hopped up on black juice with red eyes and fists
The sight of my future bout rids me of red mist
Strength in numbers and width like two bears on a mouse
I give a thought to the organ that beats in my mouth
And say, “Balls to a hurricane—
I’ll toast to my health!”

Next comes the chorus that often brings me to tears, featuring the words that empowered Alicia to admit to her parents that she had fallen in love with another woman, in defiance of expectations and tradition:

Everyday it’s the battering of bones
It’s the saving of face
It’s the courage to turn your back on the way you were raised

Alicia wasn’t the only person I knew who found strength in those words. A month or so after Alicia’s revelation, one of my female co-workers came to my office and nervously asked if she could close the door. “I want to talk to you about a problem I’m having,” she said after taking a seat. “Okay . . . but why did you come to me and not HR?” She shook her head and said, “It’s personal and they won’t get it. You seem to be the kind of person who will. You’re different than the rest . . . you’re like . . . real. ” She then told me about long-standing problems with her deeply religious parents and how she was dreading Thanksgiving with the family because she wanted to build a career instead of doing what her parents expected of her—to marry a nice, god-fearing man and devote her life to raising children. She was reluctant to disappoint them, so she hid the truth and kept telling them she hadn’t found the right man. Remembering Alicia’s experience, I said, “Do you mind if I play you a song that a friend of mine in a similar situation found helpful?” She looked surprised but eventually gave me the nod. The second she heard the line, “It’s the courage to turn your back on the way you were raised,” she burst into tears. The line is repeated twice, and in the third go-round she said, “That’s exactly what I have to do.” When she came to see me after the holiday, she shared that she told her parents in no uncertain terms that she wanted to pursue a career before considering marriage and children . . . and in the end, they apologized for their interference and promised to support her ambitions.

Apparently word got around about my Admiral Fallow Therapy Services and one of our brightest marketing assistants requested a conversation. This was a guy who seemed to have his shit together, so I was surprised when he came to me for help in dealing with his upbringing. His dad was a closet homosexual who lost his job because he held an after-hours gay party in the workplace (!) and got caught in the act. He then proceeded to become a mean drunk who disappeared from time to time (occasionally winding up in jail) and beat the shit out of my colleague’s mother when he decided to pay a visit. My co-worker had always been worried that knowledge of his father could ruin his career if anyone found out and he always felt “less-than” because his mother could only afford to send him to state college. This was more of a case of being poorly raised than over-raised, but I decided to give Louis a shot. When the song ended, he sat in silence for a few moments before the light bulb turned on. “I was raised in a climate of fear and I let that fear control me. I need to turn my back on the fear.” He realized that he could overcome his sad family history by rejecting the notion that he wasn’t good enough to compete with the Ivy Leaguers and keep telling himself that he was just as smart and talented as the guys and gals who went to Harvard (he was actually a LOT SMARTER than many of those privileged assholes). Last I heard, he had been promoted to Senior Director with a few Yalies reporting to him.

Back to the story . . . our hero finally recognizes the toxicity inherent in traditional masculinity as if he had awakened from a nightmare:

I bruised my heels, I BRUISED MY HEELS!
And was confused as to how I got here
Take your scar-smirk style
Vocal rapier and foil
And bury it with yourself and your pride
Down the nearest uncovered manhole

Everyday it’s the battering of bones
It’s the saving of face
It’s the courage to turn your back on the way you were raised

I love Louis’s passionate vocals in the verse and his ironic use of “manhole.” I think Flaubert would extend hearty congratulations to Louis for coming up with le mot juste.

After a brief interlude featuring Sarah’s flute, two sharp guitar chords cue a powerful wordless unison vocal that will continue through two reprises of the chorus. This interlude is one of the most moving musical moments (how’s that for alliteration?) I have ever heard, one that also brings me to tears as I take in the message of hope and strength expressed by those voices.

Studio and live versions are included below:

“Burn”: “The Way You Were Raised” is a tough act to follow, but Louis manages to touch my heart with this song about lingering regrets.

As much as I try to live up to Edith Piaf’s motto “Non, je ne regrette rien,” there are times when I try to fall asleep at night and find my mind filled with all the mistakes I’ve made and the people I have hurt. Most of those memories harken back to my youth when I was working through various personal issues, but the imagery of those horrible moments lingers to this day. I hate myself for causing so much pain.

Louis’s memories predate his “24th year,” making it easy for me to relate to his feeling of self-disgust:

And oh, the things I’ve done
And oh, the gravel-toothed son
Burn me now like an ant with the magnifying glass
Leave me charred and let the wind blow away the ash

The string quartet is again employed in another sad song, echoing the lyrical mood. Because of the personal connection, I can’t call this song a favorite, but in the end, I appreciate the reminder that I am human and sometimes I fuck things up . . . just like everyone else.

“Oh, Oscar”: The album comes full circle with a haunting song of despair—a feeling shared by many in today’s fucked-up world. Oscar is never identified; he could be a friend or even man’s best friend. What we do know is that Louis is in despair over his career and his perceived inability to wake up the masses to the likelihood of impending doom. The feeling is best expressed in the closing verse, which I’m sure many Americans suffering through the madness of Trumpworld can relate to:

Oh Oscar
Like the tree bursts in snow
All I wanted was to know
If there’s anyone like me
A single person who can see
In this whole goddamned country

The arrangement mirrors the lyrics, opening with Louis on acoustic guitar for the first two verses. Sarah enters with a wistful accordion in verse three; clarinet and faint percussion arrive in the closing verse and continue through the fade. Though the song expresses a sense of hopelessness, it only makes me even more determined to do all I can to save the world from self-destruction.

*****

As my readers know, I refuse to create “best of” lists because they invariably lack objectivity. That said, I would give Tree Bursts in Snow a slot in my Favorite Albums of the 21st Century list along with Kid A, In Rainbows, St. Vincent, Chaleur Humaine, American Idiot, Boxer, Streetcore and In the Heart of the Moon.

I only wish I lived in a world where everyone knew about Admiral Fallow and embraced their music. Alas, as I learned during my contemporary review period, it’s tough for any indie band to break through the muck of conformist crap peddled by the major labels. Music consumers are programmed to choose weightless garbage over substance and artistry every time.

Allow me to also go full circle and ask, “What the hell are we doing with our lives, both individually and collectively?” Are we doomed to play defense and committed to waiting things out, or are we willing to make every effort to band together to make the world a safer place where everyone has the opportunity to fulfill their dreams and realize their potential? Are we committed to truth and honesty in our relationships with others and within ourselves?

Tree Bursts in Snow gives us much to think about, but if there was ever a time to turn thoughts into positive action, it’s right now.