Bruce Soord – All This Will Be Yours

Bruce Soord – All This Will Be Yours

By Pete Clemons

Coming face to face with your own mortality is not something I would recommend. Thankfully the skill of a surgeon and hospital staff turned the tide for me and, recently, gave me a second chance of life.

Fairly soon after that episode and I find myself listening to the latest solo album, 'All this Will Be Yours' by Bruce Soord, singer songwriter for The Pineapple Thief.

And within its obvious beauty it certainly packs a powerful and emotive punch below it's surface. The brutal honesty of life that I certainly wasn't expecting in a song.

It is clear exactly who the songs are aimed at, but sometimes, you cant help but hear lyrics from your own personal angle. It has to be said that I discovered this album while a fragile state of mind existed. One that I never realised I had.

And because lyrics do become, almost, personal stories you try to deconstruction them in order to suit yourself. You try to get inside them. To try to see the song and feel it.

Across the whole of this album I found an honesty in the lyrics that is just so painful in the most exquisite way. The music, as beautifully crafted as it is, is almost incidental.

There is also a clever ambiguity to the songs. On one level they carry a simple message but on another there is something more complex coming through.

The reality though, is that this selection of songs is for Bruce's growing family. It is advance notice to the complex trials and tribulations they face ahead of them. This, and Bruce's first solo album, feel as though they are very much linked. A guide to life if you like.

Bruce's debut album was very much from the standpoint as a father. Certainly in places at least. And as his family has grown then so did this path of songwriting.

It does sound very much like a part 2, to that debut, if you like. Could this be a part of a future trilogy?. Who knows but I think that this is potentially how it could all pan out.

Maybe it was the health scare I recently experienced but, for me, these lyrics did seem to relate back to that period. The last track particularly, 'One Day I Will Leave you', really has resonated. And Bruce kindly provided me with a word or two about it:

Bruce said 'I did think twice when I sat down to write the closer. Could I really sing what I had written?? It was quite difficult to get through that track, or play it back!'

Performing the song live, I must admit that I hadn't even thought of it from that angle. Its one thing listening to it. But recording it and singing it in public must be something else altogether.

Bruce continued: 'I'm really happy you like it. I must confess I spent a LONG time on the words. They may be quite sparse compared to other artists but I would often spend hours labouring over a line. I hope others like it as much as you do!'

This album is thoughtfully written. It has depth and substance. And like a murmuration of birds the whole thing ebbs and flows in intricate and yet very precise directions. The honesty within it is astonishing. It is intense and incredibly thought provoking with a heart wrenching, yet truthful, finale.

'All This Will Be Yours' was the first new album I had heard during my bonus years. And it was well worth hanging around for. But please Bruce don't attempt this album live.........you will get me all ends up.

Life is a journey and you get drunk on it when you are young, according to the lyric of another well known songwriter. But it doesn't last forever. Life is not infinite. And this album pulls no punches in reminding you of that.

Footnote: this album release comes almost 50 years to the date after a fatal car accident in Hipswell Highway, Coventry during October 1969. It was outside the shops, close to where I grew up. And I had been in one of those shops when it happened. I have never forgotten that accident, or the person who lost their life that day, who had been at a similar age to me at that time. Life is so precious yet, at the same time, so fragile. And I just wanted that person to know that, despite the passage of time, they had not been forgotten.