I was cap­ti­vat­ed by Luke James Williams and his sin­gle Full Moon unveiled a month ago (reviewed here), an ear­ly glimpse from his new album Limes Hotel, released this week (17th April). The album was record­ed over nine months with long­time col­lab­o­ra­tor Nick Kozuch, and fea­tures guest vocals from fel­low folk artist Dear Wife,

Since releas­ing his debut album Dri­ve in 2018, Luke has per­formed at the Cam­bridge Folk Fes­ti­val, fol­lowed up with a UK head­line tour in 2022 and there are some live dates com­ing up soon. Although he’s intrin­si­cal­ly a folk artist, he wan­ders off in a delight­ful way, cher­ry-pick­ing from oth­er gen­res, blend­ing them seam­less­ly into some­thing fresh and engag­ing. There’s an earnest­ness and hon­esty to his vocals – and a clar­i­ty in his lyrics – that com­bine to bring extra res­o­nance to this new album.

Limes Hotel was writ­ten in the after­math of pro­found per­son­al loss, fol­low­ing the deaths of two close friends. Themes of mor­tal­i­ty, faith and grief sur­face. How­ev­er, the album does­n’t linger in a dark place, instead turn­ing toward renew­al and resilience. As Luke describes it, it’s about “new shoots reach­ing up towards the sun; the hope and promise of new life ris­ing from the darkness.”

He adds: “Grief is uni­ver­sal but it often feels very iso­lat­ing. I hope this album, whilst hav­ing been born out of a very dark time, can give a lit­tle light and some com­fort to peo­ple going through sim­i­lar experiences.”

The first track Saints in the Trees is a mes­meris­ing open­er to Limes Hotel; it’s about a spooky encounter in Angle­sey Abbey that swept me away by the star­tling­ly lush instrumentation.

The fol­low­ing track Seeds is more reflec­tive, delv­ing into the over­ar­ch­ing theme of death and rebirth as Luke rumi­nates “Down here amongst the seeds, under­ground, will you wait for me?” It has a propul­sive, ques­tion­ing and rest­less beat, echo­ing its omi­nous lyrics. Strange Things We Are is dri­ven by the per­cus­sive ele­ments. The mood shifts for the cen­tre track Knock­ing For Rea­sons in which Luke con­tem­plates his human­i­ty and exam­ines his shift­ing con­science, singing wry­ly: “You can move goal­posts if they’re in the way”, and the cho­rus, “If I can con­vince myself I will be alright”. It’s a rol­lick­ing num­ber accom­pa­nied by warm brass notes that feels des­tined to shine in a live setting.

Ready delves into the album’s emo­tion­al core, it’s a track suf­fused with melan­choly where a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing gives Luke cause to reflect on the gen­er­a­tions, friend­ships, and how death is always hov­er­ing in the air. There’s no get­ting away from the melan­choly vibe of this song, in the same way the lyrics of Flam­ing Lips Do You Realise? (That every­one you know some­day will die?) tear at the soul. Luke com­ments: “This song is about all the peo­ple I’ve lost and those I will inevitably lose at some point.”

The final track Hol­lows and Branch­es rounds off this gor­geous album with a trib­ute to a friend who instilled in Luke a pro­found love of nature. “When I’m long from this world, too far to be seen, in the hol­lows and branch­es you will find me.” 

Live dates:
Wednes­day 6th May — The Har­ri­son, Lon­don
Fri­day 8th May — Mary Street Live, Sheffield
Thurs­day 14th May — LTB Show­rooms, Coven­try
Fri­day 15th May — Wax and Beans, Bury
Fri­day 12th June — Junc­tion J3, Cam­bridge
Thurs­day 23rd July — South Mill Arts, Bish­ops Stortford

Luke James Williams Limes Hotel release date 17th April
Luke James Williams