Ceremony

Album review

Begun as the solo project of Auckland singer/songwriter Hollie Fullbrook, Tiny Ruins retained its defining spare, folk-minded character even after becoming a quartet and subtly expanding upon instrumentation. That changed with 2019's Olympic Girls, an album that ventured into lusher and hazier psychedelic and dream pop territory without overshadowing the intimate sensibility of both Fullbrook's songcraft and gentle vocal delivery. Tiny Ruins pick up where that album left off for fourth long-player Ceremony, a set that began life as acoustic solo affairs by Fullbrook that were given an artful, intricate band treatment in the studio. Written during periods of personal loss and pandemic isolation, its songs are set along the shores of Auckland's Manukau Harbour ("Old Murky" to locals) and steeped in seaside imagery. Ceremony welcomes listeners aboard with "Dogs Dreaming," one of the pensive set's livelier entries. Its active acoustic strumming and organ, wide-ranging bassline, and bouncy vocal melody are somewhat at odds with lyrics inspired by the fear that set in on an excursion to a lighthouse alone at dusk ("Paws know when to run"). Later, the more poignant and poetic "Driving & Soaring" takes the form of an elegant, fluttering guitar lament visited by spacey effects ("My heart was diving and soaring with the seabirds flashing by"). Accompanied by a mix of hand drums and low-pitched toms, the more fully arranged "In Light of Everything" merges wistful indie pop and prog folk, while "Dorothy Bay" takes on a darker tone fueled by electric guitar distortion ("There's a strong pull harbor-way"). Ceremony's minor-chord tendencies and cautionary melodies persist through a second half highlighted by the haunting psych-folk of "Earthly Things" ("Swing to my usual places/Check out the damage") and its strings-braced closer "The Crab/Waterbaby," which explains the album's title with the lines "I need a ceremony/I need a ritual"). However, there's no filler to be found on another accomplished and quietly haunted release from a group celebrating a decade together as a unit.

© Marcy Donelson /TiVo