"My Heart Needed a Home" by The Session
Review
It is rather wonderful that on the day which ends with The Session playing the latest ‘Hot Music Live Presents' fundraiser for The Tin, that their brand new single "My Heart Needed a Home" comes out. I suppose it falls into the category serendipity at least from my perspective.
When I focused on the band as I ran through those participating as part of the promotion, I mentioned that one of my points of admiration was that they are so forward facing. When you have chalked up a quarter of a century, any band is entitled to a sense of pride & achievement but even though The Session do mark & reflect upon milestones, their obvious enthusiasm for the next step rather than the last is what people notice about them: and I'm sure that contributes to their live act just getting more dynamic than ever. There is zero treading of water or living off past glories.
It most definitely affects the writing too. Longevity has various effects on bands: some tend to create less as the years go on, others drift into something like a formula. I'm never going to criticise either: to me, holding together & still enjoying playing together after all that time is a phenomenon that few groups experience anyway.
However this band don't do formulae and seem to draw energy from exploring new compositional ground (though it's worth saying that it's not much good writing a great song unless your band have the capacity to do it justice: which of course is the case here.
Where The Session do benefit from their experience naturally is in the maturity of the themes of the songs. These are adult songs of life lived & reflected upon which can only come after an appropriate while.
There is a tendency to go for "bigger picture" issues such as "Denver Hill" (one of their songs which really should have more prominence) which comes from years of looking at the world and grappling with its injustices but even with more introspective tracks, there is accumulated wisdom and nuance.
That the band consider "My Heart Needed a Home" "probably the best thing" they've done should not be taken lightly: they have plenty to choose from but it also illustrates that the past is great but today is always that little bit better & that each song is a bit of an advance on the last.
"Launched" this morning on BBC CWR by Sheryl on Phil Upton's show (I say "launched": it is the formal release but Phil and colleagues have already played it at least three times already) clearly the local media like it. In fact it's the BBC CWR "Track of the Week". And with cause. It's definitely one of those more introspective Session songs and I suppose the intimacy of expression & subject add an extra frisson which contributes to that rating they give it.
It's a most intense song really & that's far from being a bad thing: you can't take it lightly. The passion of the singing certainly seems to spur the instrumental playing onto great heights (by which I mean soulfulness not showboating).
Clearly a lot of love went into the preparation: it's a most detailed song with constant shifts in arrangement in terms of elements and textures. The extra levels of the former (including keyboards) are handled with taste. Over-arrangement can often be a sign of covering up weaknesses of various descriptions: not here. Each has been added to enhance & complement the song but only to the point of doing so & not beyond.
At this juncture, I feel I need to voice an honest opinion I've never done before in a review of the band: or indeed Dean's solo releases. Most people who know him will be aware of the level of Dean's admiration for Paul Weller. However while sure that his influence must be there on all sorts of his songs, with "My Heart Needed a Home" is the first time I feel I ought to say how Paul Weller-ish the song sounds. Because to me it really does. Possibly because this is one of their tracks which steers closest to the sort of soul-rock PW does so well, possibly because the subject matter is nearer the sort of topics he often goes for. Or maybe just because the influence bubbles closer to the surface here than I have ever heard before. Anyway, that's all meant as a compliment so please read it as such.
As I say, the sentiments of the song could not be written by someone at the start of their career (or at least not very truthfully) so what you get is culmination of thoughts and a mature and often deeply personal reflection. You can't take it emotionally lightly.
If The Session choose to regard it as the pinnacle of their work, then I understand why. They play & sing it like it is. However I'm not betting on their aiming to surpass it next time out. That's what they do.
You can catch The Session tonight (18th July) at The Tin as mentioned above, tomorrow (Saturday 19th) at Sent2Coventry Festival, Saturday 9th August at Coventry Pride and Saturday 6th September at Leamington Food Festival
