Album Review: Radical Face - The Family Tree: The Branches

The alluring web of music that Ben Cooper aka Radical Face has weaved over the past decade is one that is always absorbing, unique and often otherworldly. What Cooper instils into The Branches, the second instalment of The Family Tree trilogy, is touching, uplifting, sometimes bleak, but always mesmerising. Holy Branches combines his airy vocal with a sublimely stark piano line and gentle strumming before the players move in. This is how much of the album plays out and is especially moving thanks to string embellishments on songs-like Summer Skeletons and sombre The Crooked Kind.