Iechyd Da

As a solo artist, Bill Ryder-Jones had trodden a notably different musical path to his former bandmates in The Coral, his emotionally fragile songs casting him at times as the Wirral’s answer to Elliott Smith. A comparison that might have sounded hyperbolic before Jones’ astonishingly accomplished fifth album. Iechyd Da (“good health” in Welsh) was born out of a particularly fraught period for Jones: breakups, breakdowns and a dependency on sedatives making an already difficult lockdown even more so. Yet like Sparklehorse or Mercury Rev (whose Deserter’s Songs is a clear influence here), out of his own despair Jones creates a work of remarkable beauty, songs such as children’s choir-assisted “We Don’t Need Them” and “This Can’t Go On”’s epic, end-of-its-tether desperation sparkling with a transcendence that feels defiant, even optimistic.