Keaton Henson emerged as an anxiety-ridden, maudlin singer-songwriter who felt uncomfortable with live performance. Much acclaim later, Kindly Now offers reflections on his subsequent career via songs about love, lust and the role of ego in making music. All decent enough subjects, but Henson treats them as if he has discovered the keys to life eternal and lays everything on with a trowel. Pregnant pauses and whispered vocals are overly employed to hammer home lyrics that aren’t as profound as he seems to think.
The Damien Rice-ish Alright addresses inner demons but doesn’t need such over-the-top lines as: “Don’t make me go outside / God knows what out there lies.” Old Lovers in Dressing Rooms, with its lovely initial insights on youthful love, gradually takes on a more narcissistic, even unchivalrous undercurrent. His piano playing is beautiful, and there’s something of the instrumental magic of his 2014 album Romantic Works in the inventive string embellishments, but much of Kindly Now feels over-egged and overwrought.
