Album Review: THINGS THAT COME AND GO, Hadley Fraser

What happens when you take beloved songs originally sung by music history’s greatest  names and combine them with exciting, fresh arrangements that make them feel like they’re brand new numbers? Hadley Fraser provides an answer to that question and gives it a title: Things That Come and Go. The artist’s third studio recording is a gorgeous, comforting collection that dips freely into the Great American Songbook and wraps it up with a timeless-indie-classical feel to it.

It’s a meticulously organised ten-track album. The songs are famous, but not so excessively that the line-up comes off as a redundant rehashing of standards or a vanity project. The piece has a consistent cohesion to it - sonically but also narratively, with the numbers living inside a bubble of melancholy that cracks your heart open and then lodges into the fracture to heal it.

‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning’ gently introduces the idea of a dangerous downward spiral and ‘I Get Along Without You’ makes you acquainted with it. What ensues is a beautiful journey through the trenches of lost love, featuring a healthy dose of soul searching and personal investigation. Fraser’s vocals are, as usual, like velvet covering steel. We get to appreciate a different range of his on this occasion, far from the belts and power of musical theatre and closer to quiet contemplation and explorative introversion.

Maiya Quansah-Breed (of SIX fame) joins him on two of Sinatra’s tracks, ‘How Are You Fixed For Love’’ (one of the few delicately upbeat moments here) and ‘Goodbye’, bringing a strong female touch to the mix. The list of collaborators is small but mighty; Quansah-Breed might be the most recognisable name in the credits, but it’s Sam Young and his arrangements that make a splash. They’re wholly original and complex, straying away from the traditional, overly done Sinatra remakes. If unfamiliar with the songbook, one would genuinely think Fraser is singing all original tracks. 

After spanning all hues of heartache, Fraser leaves his listeners on a slightly more uplifting note. ‘You Must Believe In Spring’ concludes the collection with sweet strings and a light at the end of the tunnel. There are no expected piano flourishes in sight, the team once again dodging the obvious choice. Musically and conceptually, Things That Come and Go is the kind of album you listen to on a Sunday morning in late spring, making breakfast while the sun starts to warm up the earth.

Things That Come and Go is out today (7 February)

Read our interview with Hadley Fraser about the album here.