Check Ahead: Dry The River, 'Alarms In The Heart'

In music, the “Origin Story” has become a common, if over-romanticized narrative hook -- especially when it involves an artist decamping to write songs in some far-off Walden-esque location: a cabin in snowy Wisconsin, or a remote beach, or simply a private studio upstate. Certainly at this point, that’s become a cliche. But there’s still something enticing in the imagery of a musician toiling alone on their craft, separated from day-to-day distractions, and coming up with something that could not have been made anywhere else. And for Dry The River, that isolation from the world was firmly integral to the creation process for its new album, Alarms In The Heart.

Dry The River began as a solo outlet for Norwegian-born singer-songwriter Peter Liddle, and its debut, 2012’s Shallow Bed, was admittedly a collection of songs written for himself over many years. But after the success of that record -- and especially the song “Bible Belt” -- the London band travelled to Iceland, to workshop and write and record, but also, to redefine what the band should represent and sound like as a full band. With the help of producers Charlie Hugall (Florence and The Machine, Ed Sheeran), Paul Savage (Franz Ferdinand) and Peter Miles -- and arrangements and strings from Valgeir Sigurðsson (Sigur Rós, Björk) -- Dry The River’s songs conjure a new grandiosity befitting of the country's sprawling otherworldly landscapes.

Stylistically, much like Shallow Bed, Alarms In The Heart further showcases Dry The River’s skill in building quaint, folk hymnals into a chest-thumping choruses and elegant Baroque pop songs into impassioned cascading showstoppers. Yet even from Liddle's first quavering notes of the opening title track, it’s evident Dry The River has upped the ante on its operatic flourish.

You can hear it in the way delicate, finger-picked songs like "Gethsemane" and "Vessel" slowly unfurl line by line and swell into climactic moments that could fill any concert hall. The band also flexes with some scorching distortion in "Everlasting Light" and with the blustery guitar melodies in the U2 (by way of Coldplay)-styled "Hidden Hand." That said, the album’s lovelier moments come from that shimmering outro on “Hope Diamond” and the transcendent ballad "Roman Candle" -- which features gorgeous guest vocals from Emma Pollock.

Thematically, Liddle channels his alienation from Iceland’s setting to ruminate on haunted memories, religion and spirituality, as well as profess declarations of love, as in “Rollerskate”’s repeated, almost desperate mantra “Couldn’t want you more than this.” In “Alarms In The Heart,” he employs apocalyptic imagery (tremors, ripples in the water) as a way of describing a crumbling relationship. And, as on Shallow Bed’s “Chambers & Valves,” Liddle once again returns to his former graduate medical studies for inspiration with “Med School.” It’s an energetic clanging song that recalls a panic attack during an academic autopsy and questioning if he’s lost his nerve for being a doctor: “I regulate my breathing and I can’t escape the feeling that I should not be watching today.”

After a rejuvenating escape, Alarms In The Heart is the sound of a band mastering the art of sweeping climaxes and heartfelt moments as a means to reconnect with real life.