Between the Richness
Between the Richness carries a lot of feeling in a short space. Fiddlehead use rough-edged guitars, a driving rhythm section and Pat Flynn's strained voice to bring grief and renewed hope into the same songs. The sound is familiar post-hardcore, but the band make it feel purposeful through the force of the performances and the care behind the writing.
Grief Motif begins quietly, with a spoken poetry recording setting a reflective mood before the full band arrive. The change into heavier playing is sudden and effective. It gives the album an emotional frame without slowing the opening to a stop. The Years continues with a repeated, insistent pulse that keeps the pressure on.
Fiddlehead are equally convincing when they make the music more direct. Eternal You moves quickly, its punk energy giving Flynn's rough voice a stronger push. Get My Mind Right has a ragged melodic lift, while Loverman finds a more withdrawn tone. These are small changes inside a consistent sound, but they stop the record from depending on the same kind of release every time.
Heart to Heart gives the sequence its clearest destination. Written as a letter to Flynn's son, it holds the record's opposing feelings together: the loss of a parent and the arrival of a child. The guitars and voice build in force before a solitary bass line remains. The return of the poetry recording connects the ending to the beginning, making the album feel complete rather than simply brief.
There is a limit to how much the band change the style itself. The warm guitar crunch and gruff singing will be familiar to listeners who follow this part of emo and post-hardcore, and a few songs pass more easily than they stay in the memory. The record's emotional clarity is more distinctive than its musical vocabulary.
That is still a good reason to spend time with it. Fiddlehead play with urgency while leaving room for tenderness, and the compact writing keeps the heavier feelings from becoming exhausting. Between the Richness works because its hope does not erase the sadness that came before it. The songs give both a place, with enough melody and momentum to make a difficult subject feel approachable.
