Album Review: Howard’s Together Alone Observes Love’s Identity
“Together Alone” is a double edged sword. It can mean you and your lover are together; separated from the gawking eyes and the general opinion of others. It can also mean that, even without the world’s thoughts on your relationship, your love has become thoughtless. One meaning can mean intimacy, and the other could spell the beginning of the end. Howard’s Together Alone aims to define both.
The hardest part of any relationship is defining yourself according to who you are for your lover and who you need to be for yourself. The more relationships we have, the more roles and identities we gain, and Together Alone juggles the balancing acts we portray for others. From “Mother’s Wedding” to “Act 1” and “Act 2,” the album feels like a dance between Damien Rice and a synthesizer. It brings an earthy, blue grassiness to electronica that would flip the EDM world in confusion.
Anytime you add an electro rhythm to a song, it is to escalate it, but it is as if Howard are trying to ground the surreal. If you were feeling high and above like a floating, their string melodies pull you down like a gentle hand tugging you into its grasp. Led by Howard Feibusch, the band blends the insular, introspective nature of folk music with the splashiness of electronica, and thus emanates a dynamic dichotomy to every couple: who were are in private, together, versus in public. Tracks like, “Your Honor,” “Brave Young Man,” and “Soul Mourning” have Feibusch lyrically contemplating if you are truly “real” as you mold and try to please others.
You are not wrong in wanting to love and be good to others, but falsehood and discontent comes when you cannot do such things for yourself. Luckily, Feibusch has a voice that humanizes and commiserates with this truth. Vocally, it is as if he is caressing the rawness of his spirit to see if their truly is such a thing as “fake” when you are constantly choosing who you are and wish to be, even if for others. For more Information On Howard And To Buy Together Alone on September 14 Click Here.
