Micah P Hinson and The Red Empire Orchestra - 'When We Embraced' (Full Time Hobby) Released 14/07/08

Let’s clear up the phonetics - you can call him Mee-cah, or Mike-ah, but don’t call him Mee-sha. Ever world-weary in tone and timbre, but this time the crooning Micah P Hinson is in love. And has a new band and label. Other things remain the same - the witty bod du femme b&w cover art. On ‘When We Embraced’, Micah P Hinson and The Red Empire Orchestra deliver what is arguably Hinson’s most assured, complete and commensurate album. With the epiphanic consciousness of the love-struck and the musical conviction of a great band-leader, on ‘When We Embraced’ the verses are tight, repetitive even, but the music is unfettered and forms pirouettes with retro-dancehall melodies and waltzes from the orchestra supplanted with banjo and Hammond organ.

The roving ‘Come Home Quickly, Darlin’’ lays a template that we find on ‘When We Embraced and ‘I Keep Having These Dreams’, where the verses repeat line by line and the instrumentation offers the moves with swirling Hammond organ and orchestral lilt. The gorgeous ‘Tell Me It Ain’t So’ comes across as a Lambchop / Ray Lamontagne lamentation - Hinson singing “…constantly craving what isn’t mine…” with a regretful tone while violin and chopsticks-style piano strike a waltz and Hinson opens those mighty lungs. The single ‘When We Embraced’ captures a Credence Clearwater Revival-style hoe-down with banjo-led arrangement and Hinson’s “oh oh ohh’s”, and ‘Throw The Stone’ runs a mile a minute with a a light violin, guitar and banjo melody and a gleeful heart.

‘Sunrise Over The Olympus Mons’ positively sweats with bliss with Hinson singing “…oh love of my life…” even as a guitar screeches like a hob-kettle on the boil, while the quiet, ruminative ‘The Fire Came Up To My Knees’ adopts symbolic verse that lays to past to rest, and ‘The Wishing Well and The Willow Tree’ adopts an impressionist dappled tune from banjo, piano and fuzz guitar. The band are struck for ‘You Will Find Me’ with a M Ward-like retro tune that needs to be cranked loud to appreciate it’s thunderbolts and hooks with Hinson proving the link to the past glories of Roy Orbison, as on ‘We Won’t Have To Be Alone’ which swirls with Hammond and Hinson singing “Now we’re in love/ come and stay by my side/ the holes in the sky/ are just stars in your eyes…” like a Richard Hawley belter with the panache of a Dylan ‘Blonde On Blonde’ classic.

The closer ‘Dyin’ Alone’ is lifted by string quartet and adopts a Celtic tone in what is another Dylanesque moment, that of The Freewheelin’. Not just a class album, ‘When We Embraced’ has the makings of a classic with it’s hallmarks of love and affirmation of life. Not a single duffer. Hinson has never sounded better. ‘Nuff said.