Music Review – November 2024
The Wirral, where I was born and bred, has an incredibly rich Viking heritage and is the only place in mainland Britain to have documented evidence of Norwegian Viking Settlers, from 902AD. This album is a homage to that heritage and the many place from around the peninsula whose names are born of Viking tongue.
The Wirral and Chester’s city walls are two of my favourite places for walking, looking and contemplating, so this new album by Giants of Discovery was one I definitely needed to hear. The Wirral is very much its own place: a finger of land squeezed between Wales and Merseyside, close to both but part of neither. With its ancient villages, woods and marshes it is a haunted land soaked in memory, its Norse past betrayed in many of the local place names.
Giants of Discovery plays all the instruments and has written all the music on this release. Why ‘two arrow falls’ I wondered when I first picked up the album, wouldn’t ‘two arrows fall’ be more grammatically correct? Then I realised that an arrow fall is a measure of distance, the two arrow falls in question being the span from Chester’s walls to the ancient boundary of the Wirral.
Track 1: Church in the Wood
The sound of running water. Distorted string chords, as if sound is travelling backwards. Ominous bass notes brought forward in the mix making the whole sound fatter, and gradually more disturbing.
Track 2: Crane Bird Sandbank
Peaceful ambient sounds, a bubbling of water. Marimba-like chords rise and take flight.
Track 3: Bruna’s Stronghold
Some great guitar work, deep layers of ambient sound behind it. Bruna, in ancient Norse, means ‘to advance like wildfire’. Like a blazing fire, this track builds to a crescendo,
Track 4: Island of the Britons
It opens with a haunting circular melody, then the sound opens out like the sun appearing from behind a cloud. Bass notes emerge like footsteps. I don’t know the location of the island of the Britons referred to in the title, but after the arrival of the Saxons, Wales remained a stronghold of the Britons.
Looking towards Wales from the Wirral
Track 5: Heather Island on the Marsh
The Wirral certainly has a lot of marshland, particularly on the peninsula’s western side, along the Dee estuary. This track is dreamily serene, with rich textures and a pleasingly layered sound.
Track 6: Headland Overgrown by Birch
This is my current favourite piece. A feeling of flying. Wind through the trees. A repetitive melody in a lower register. Somewhere at the periphery of the listener’s senses something sinister lurks. Am I the hunter or the hunted?
Track 7: Nightfall Across the Assembly Fields
The Assembly Fields, þing-vollr in Old Norse, is now the present-day village of Thingwall. Birds circle, home to roost. The sun retreats and night emerges to claim its realm.
Track 8: Moonlight on Myrtle Corner
Wir heal, the Old Norse name for Wirral, also translates as myrtle corner. A piece of music to bring the whole album together. An assembly of sounds and voices. Ancient. Immutable. Deep textures. Swirling colours. A celebration of a land proudly sitting between two arms of the sea.
Two Arrow Falls (from Chester City Walls) is Giants of Discovery’s tribute to the place he calls home. This is an atmospheric and deeply satisfying contribution to the select canon* of contemporary music inspired by the ancient landscape of the Wirral.
Discover Two Arrow Falls (from Chester City Walls) and other music by Giants of Discovery here at Bandcamp.
*I would also add the music of Forest Swords to that canon, particularly his Engravings album.
