Premiere: Autumn Recruits – Solitary Bee (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

There is something wonderfully elemental about Solitary Bee’s music, something earthy and ecological, and even when their lyrics seem to have a duality, acting as a metaphor for human activity and emotions, that only seems to reinforce our connection with the world around us.

If the previous single, Love Wakes Up, was about the first flourishes of spring, at least in its most literal and obvious meaning, then Autumn Recruits, as the name implies, is about the falling leaves months down the line. We all feel it, watching the leaves spin and spiral to the ground, the skyline becoming emptier day by day, those greens and golds and browns and reds that softened and hid the human world, revealing our stark surroundings. 

When taken together, the two songs work in tandem, the two ends of a spectrum of decay and flourish, death and rebirth, a reminder that you can’t have one without the other and perhaps, if you wanted to take this as a metaphor for the human condition, a reminder that we too have to shed our old skins so that we can grow a new one. I may be looking for things that aren’t there, however, maybe it is simply a lovely song!

As before, the song showcases Solitary Bee’s ability to write mature and mesmerising pop songs, songs that elevate the genre beyond its usual, mainstream lowest common denominator, songs that travel beyond its throwaway status, songs that look beyond the fickle winds of fad and fashion, and remind us that, in the right hands at least, pop music is an art form equal to any other. 

Solitary Bees are definitely the right hands.