Crafty Cuts

The first album after a band’s absence is often received with trepidation, and the five-year gap since Tindersticks’ last album Waiting For The Moon might have seemed like a sign that the well had started to run dry.

But as keyboard player David Boulter commented in a recent interview, the break was more like a chance to take stock, work on some different projects and “to feel excited about making music again”. After that, the core trio of Nottingham lads, plus a selection of guest musicians, relocated to France – singer Stuart Staples now has a house there, along with a new studio (Le Chien Chanceux) where the album was recorded. And happily for Tindersticks fans, they haven’t felt the need to tear up the rulebook.

As ever, Staples’ voice is one of the most distinctive things about the band’s sound. It’s a melodramatic baritone, strangely feminine in a way, deceptively gentle, perfectly suited to the lush orchestrations and quietly confident songwriting. No look-at-me musical pyrotechnics, more like the steadily glowing embers of a fire that’s been burning slowly for years. The stabs of guitar that pierce the warm droning organ hold of Mother Dear are the closest thing to a solo on this understated ensemble piece.

The Hungry Saw opens gently, almost tentatively, with the sparse piano of Introduction like the first drops of rainfall. From the soft balladry of the first few tracks, led by piano and keys, there’s a gradual build to E-Type’s bold washes of brass – its only vocals murmured da-da-das half-buried beneath layers of reverbing guitar – and the swooning strings on The Other Side of the World.

The title track marries an upbeat melody with dark surgical imagery. “He’s got a hungry saw,” Staples sings. “The first cut is the skin, the second is the muscle / Then there’s a crack of bone / And he’s at your heart”. It’s an organ often laid bare by songwriters, but rarely so literally.