Nothing's Lost - Prints In The Snow

Debut album out now from Yorkshire four piece, Prints in the Snow

Formed in 2010 by the pair, Laurie Armitt and Catherine Preston, they were joined by music journalist David Simpson on drums and by former Hermit Crabs guitarist Mark Waudby. This album was released in 2019 on the band's bandcamp page and still available.

From the opening track 'Waiting for the Feeling' there is an energy that permeates from this band, a tightness of their collective spirit coming through the ether. The drive of that album opener is in stark contrast to the next two tracks, 'To Be Home Again' and 'Sleep' where the sombre reflectiveness washes over the listener, which continues in the little gem 'For Grace'

There is a power to this four piece that radiates throughout the nine track album, with pieces reminiscing of lost opportunites, past glories and fading chances, which comes from the ages of the group in their more mature years.

There is a yearning in these songs, reminiscent of Mike Scott and the Waterboys, music which is very much British and makes you think this is a lost soundtrack to some fabled lost Lindsey Anderson kitchen sink drama from the early 1960s or that renaissance of British film in the late 1980s.

Yet you still get the rock of 'Desdemona' a song of requited love, this is an album as much about love and the love of music and not an angry political album. That is followed by 'Be Still My Heart' a lovely track that recalls the gushing work of Richard Hawley or Billy Bragg - a song with a tag line that pulls on your ear to nuzzle into your memory slipstream.

An album by music lovers for music lovers in all its faded glory, during this period of self-isolation it is an album that befits this prolonged period of reflection and contemplation; a small minor masterpiece ripe for a larger audience.

Follow Prints In The Snow on Twitter @printsinthesnow.

Read my interview with David Simpson here for his book 'The Last Champions'