Nick Hemmings (no, nothing to do with me…) has been kicking around for nigh on two decades now. His early 90's band She Talks To Angels featured actor Paddy Considine and film director Shane Meadows (This is England), but despite some soundtrack work it wasn't until the formation of The Leisure Society with Christian Hardy, his significant musical other half, that some success came with their debut single, 'The Last Of The Melting Snow', a song championed by big fan Guy Garvey of Elbow, and which was subsequently nominated for an Ivor Novello Award.

 
With extensive links in the Brighton music scene via the Wilkommen Collective, Sons of Noel and Adrian and The Miserable Rich; The Leisure Society have established a reputation for literate, melodic, intricately arranged and performed indie folk pop. Subsequent to this, their fourth album, all their previous albums had won widespread critical acclaim, and new fans in the shape of Brian Eno and Ray Davies, amongst many other luminaries. They are certainly praised in many quarters by the great and good of the music industry.
 
Whilst their previous album 'Alone Aboard The Ark' was a relatively upbeat, poppier affair, the underlying theme of 'The Fine Art Of Hanging On' implied a need for a musical palette that was perhaps a little less sunny and a tad more melancholic. As Hemmings explains; "all the way through writing the album a friend of mine was battling cancer. I reached out by sending him the rough demos of this album. By giving him this access to the work in progress and by him giving feedback, we formed a close bond. Sadly he lost his battle, but his input and presence is there in the album."
 
As well as this specific case, the album generally delves into the idea of clinging on, whether relating to a relationship, or anything in life that requires strength of mind, perseverance, or perhaps bloody-mindedness. Lead and title track 'The Fine Art Of Hanging On' is, perversely, an upbeat opener, Nick Hemmings' Rufus Wainwright-esque voice providing the intricate melody, a slightly incongruous bull whip interloping along with the semi-mariachi trumpets, although as a whole it works surprisingly well, as does the Stereolab-lite style groover 'Nothing Like This'. Fluffy in sound, helped along by a flute, it's a weightless song, carried on the breeze of a summer's day. "Time and time made the same mistakes, I remember the day you said we should wait," he sings at the close, in a voice softer and less expressive than we are used to. The more straightforwardly acoustic melancholy of 'Tall Black Cabins' sees Hemmings at his most poetic, a song inspired by the fishermen in Hastings, depicted here as fighting for their very existence in a changing world, Hemmings' vaguely world-weary voice – which sometimes go against the grain on the more jaunty songs – beautifully in tune with the sentiments expressed.
 
Throughout the songs are mostly superbly constructed, such as the waltz-like and gently meanderning 'The Undefeated Ego', its hymnal quality snugly fitting in with the equally refreshing circus organ finale. 'Outside In' sees The Leisure Society again stitching three or so song ideas into one, a trick they repeat on the mid-tempo glam stomper 'I'm a Setting Sun', the closest the band will get to being compared to Primal Scream and Jean Jeanie-era David Bowie, before it segues into some chilled out, banjo led, country-folk flavours. It's adventurous and rather daring stuff, that often veers close to being just silly, but somehow almost always stays on the right side of tasteful. It's no wonder that Hemmings is often called a songwriters songwriter, such is the seemingly easy way he has with complex structures and ideas.
 
It doesn't always work though; the beguiling melancholia of 'You Are What You Take' evokes the spirt of Radiohead for much of the time, but the accompanying chorus doesn't quite do it justice, while 'Wide Eyes At Villains' brings out the Lennon-McCartney ('Come Together' was a staple of their set for a while) in Hemmings, always a dangerous thing to do, subconsciously or otherwise. Not only that but this, along with the damp and uninspired six minute 'All is Now', are twice as long as the other tracks, suddenly forsaking the disciplined economy of elsewhere.
 
Closing track 'As The Shadows Form', does however exist within a much tighter structure, and shorter timespan, the folk flavours, tasteful trumpet and piano gently flowing, before an abrupt end cuts the song short, in keeping with the song's death theme.
 
Warm in tone, 'The Fine Art Of Hanging On' was recorded on analogue tape, complimenting the band's trademark musical quirks and multi-instrumentalism. Hemmings' lyrics remain personal and literate, if sometimes rather heavy-going, but more often than not gracing the sometimes baroque, and at other times orchestral, folk-pop flavours.
Jeff Hemmings