Taken By Trees: Another Year – album review

Taken By Trees: Another Year

Rough Trade Records

Vinyl | DL | Stream available here

Available 9th December 2022

Victoria Bergsman adds a new chapter to her Taken By Trees solo project, with a stunningly beautiful set of interpretations of the music of Colin Blunstone.

Taken By Trees is the solo project of Victoria Bergsman, a songwriter and musician blessed with an incredible voice. Victoria Bergsman was formerly the lead singer with Swedish indie band The Concretes. Having made three albums as Taken by Trees, this very talented artist has turned her attention to the work of Colin Blunstone, who is the lead singer with The Zombies, as well as having a very successful solo career.

Another Year is a five track mini album of Victoria Bergsman’s exquisite interpretations of songs from Colin Blunstone’s classic albums, One Year and Ennismore. Colin Blunstone is a very important inspiration for Victoria Bergsman, and Another Year is both a very personal appreciation of his music and a thank you to him. It is a very persuasive door into Colin Blunstones music, which will encourage you to seek out his albums, as well as shining a light on Victoria Bergsman’s wonderful musicality, expressed through a series of dazzling musical arrangements and wonderfully expressive vocals.

The album opens with Time Is Running Out, a Colin Blunstone composition from his 1972 Ennismore album. It introduces us to Esther Lennstrand’s vibraphone with its wonderfully wistful intricacies, that add so much atmosphere to these recordings, and is the perfect musical setting for Victoria Bergsman’s voice to gently rise and fall. With its sad tale of standing still while everything else changes around you, Victoria Bergsman’s vocal has a lovely poetical timbre, supported by the beguiling combination of vibraphone, woodwind instruments and percussion

Say You Don’t Mind, from Colin Blunstone’s 1971 One Year album, is a Denny Laine song, which Colin Blunstone made his own with a soaring vocal over a stunning string arrangement. It was deservedly a massive hit at the time, and here Victoria Bergsman’s interpretation, adds a whole new wonderous musical layer to this great song. The narrative of seeking redemption is given further emotional depth with a haunting vocal that evokes feelings of both hope and desperation. It is a hallmark of Victoria Bergsman’s voice that it can carry completely convincingly a complex array of emotions. The elegiac musical arrangement combines a gentle jazz-based swing and choir like backing vocals that combine gracefulness and elegance.

I Don’t Believe In Miracles, written by Russ Ballard who was in the rock band Argent, returns us to the Ennismore album. Freja Drakenberg’s reverberating piano chords blend seamlessly with the floating sound of the vibraphone, and John Eriksson’s lovely, brushed drumming. The nuanced stately pace of this arrangement enables the vocal to convey a real fragility and storytelling quality.

Caroline Goodbye, another Colin Blunstone composition, is one of the pivotal tracks on his One Year album, reflecting poignantly on a relationship break up. This new interpretation has a gorgeous big pop ballad feel, that brings together a beautifully ascending mix of instruments and voices, and Victoria Bergsman’s haltingly romantic vocal.

She Loves The Way They Love Her, was written by Rod Argent and Chris White, and was the opening track on the One Year album. Rod Argent and Chris White were also fellow colleagues with Colin Blunstone in The Zombies, and Rod Argent was of course also in Argent. On this version, a very engaging and contemporary electronic like soundscape is punctuated by some blissful saxophone playing by Nils Berg. In a thrilling contrast, Victoria Bergsman’s yearning vocal, which gently permeates through and around the instruments, adds a traditional folk layer to the performance. This is astonishingly good.

This Taken By Trees album comes with a wholehearted recommendation. It is an album that you will frequently return to and discover new musical layers. A completely immersive listening experience, full of beauty and thoughtfully subtle musical elements. Moreover, an album that will hopefully lead to many more people discovering the music of Colin Blunstone. This reviewer can’t wait to see what Victoria Bergsman will do next musically.

Watch the official visualiser video for Say You Don’t Mind
here:

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Source: louderthanwar.com