Keaton Henson's latest release, the "bedroom classical" experiment known as Romantic Works,
is the dictionary definition of a surprise album. Fans expecting a
follow up to the mostly delicate, occasionally vicious, but always
gorgeous guitar-and-vocals record which was Birthdays were
instead greeted with sparse piano pieces and lightly humming strings.
Gone is the now familiar ache in Keaton's voice as he bares his heart to
the world, gone are the beautiful but distant female vocals, long gone
are the surprise explosions into distorted guitars and drums. Perhaps
most noticeably of all, gone are the lyrics, spinning us heart-wrenching
stories of heartbreak and loss and leaving yet more feelings of absence
in their wake. Instead, we are greeted by the empty, emotionless sound
of footsteps and mournful strings playing almost at random which is
"Preface."
