This is a decent one. Opener ‘Zurich’ wafts a rich intimate voice along on some intricate but not overly flashy guitar picking that comes with the barest whiff of early Simon & Garfunkel, some subtle bass accompaniment nudging the whole thing comfortably home in a shade over three minutes. Listening leaves a lovely warm tingling glow, like a quality brandy on a cold evening, and it’s clear that Matthew Kilford, who was once in local indie plodders Belarus, is some distance ahead of the army of local zombie strummers who feel a strange impetus to whine about loneliness, loss and the fact that Cadbury’s Crème Eggs aren’t as big as they used to be, or whatever crud clogs their emotional development.
‘Know By Now’ is equally well-bred, but swaps the plucked guitar for chords and a drummer which loses some of the breeziness, but doesn’t mire us too badly, and ‘Hindsight’ opts for a similar, but slightly more bluesy piano-led pace, that brings us back to Paul Simon, this time in his solo guise, albeit without the world music/funk/gospel/Chevy Chase. This is the least satisfying track on the EP, but is still far from an embarrassment, and steps sedately along in a rather winning way.
Kilford saves the best till last. The brief title track has a melancholically eternal folk melody, that sounds like something from the Irish diaspora – as much “Fairytale Of New York” as “Willie McBride”. Well shaped as the record is, we’d be lying if we claimed that any of the songs managed to stay in our mind for more than about seven seconds after they finished, and whilst Kilford has a pleasant, understated voice and some perfectly listenable lyrics, he can’t boast the plangent beauty of Drake, the intensity of Dylan, or the poetry of Cohen. Still, if you wanted a brief aural sorbet to cleanse the ear canals between courses of Autechre, Merzbow and Guitar Wolf, or fancied reminding yourself how well a simple unadorned voice can work, you could do far worse than House On The Hill.