Terrascope Online Review - May 2008

Showing a melancholy state of mind this time around Richard Haswell AKA Rhubarb has delivered his finest work so far in the shape of “If I Could Only Make It Through January”. With sparse and effective guitar, opening track “Fade Out/Fade In” is a minor key and personal song, the vocal delivery immaculate in its delivery. Even better is “3 Seconds”, the violin melody, matching the mood with understated passion. On “Wanderlust”, the addition of drums and distorted guitar gives the song a noisier demeanour, something that quickly dissipates when the haunting “Third Lanark” takes the album into darker places. This is possibly my favourite piece on the album, the ghostly percussion joined by banjo and guitar in twilight perfection. Finally, after the Roy Harper (ish) “September Wasps”, some beautiful violin enhances the delicate phrasing of “Alyth North”, a sad and gentle instrumental that ends the album with a downbeat flourish.

Woven Wheat Whispers Review - March 2008

Is it already album number three for this musical maverick at the service?   If the winter's seem darker and Summer ever shorter, then Rhubarb is here with his broken-down acoustic songs of solace.  His music forever sounds on the edge of falling apart in an emotionally devastated heap but he weathers on, fighting against the elements.   On dozens of releases he has established a quiet following who find his music the antidote to the supposed glamour of today's music industry.  Here it seems is our very own voice, unique like Will Oldham or Robin Hitchcock and operating outside the conventions of music labels like Damien Youth.   Although often fragile, his music can sway almost prettily as on the upbeat 'Wanderlust'.   His music isn't depressing though it's uplifting, getting on with life however it can.   He's the loner in the snow, hands thrust deeply into his pockets looking through the windows at us in the warm, all we have to do is invite him in.

Toescabs and Teardrops Review May 2008

I was understandably plussed when the lauded and laudable Edinburgh based "Rhubarb" dropped a line to our humble myspace site.  Broadly speaking, I would position Rhubarb as one part neo-folk,  two parts electro-kitsch, three parts shoegazer, four parts lo-fi, and in all parts awesome. If Leonard Cohen, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive, and the Sisters of Mercy were to form a pandrogynous being I think it might write music rather like this... However, none of these appear on Rhubarb's influences, and they liken their sound to "Nick Drake, Bonnie Prince Billy, Damien Jurado". My comparison occurs to me as I listen to the song "Hell is In Hello" off the 2002 release, Igbo. But I insist it stands.
"Hell Is In Hello" is actually the third song which came up on the auto-play and is not exactly represantitive of the others, but, like most bands I like none of the songs offered are definitive of "the" sound.
Fantastically, Rhubarb offers six songs from four differnt albums for all of our grub hungry ears.
"Pillow", from the 1999 self released album Piranhas, is where the auto-play actually started me. It is a simple piece of pluck and glum, a guitar, a voice, a fair dose of echo, a lament for the surface of our age which is anything but pillow-like. This reminds me of something, the melody is reminiscent of Current 93, but the singing I can't exactly pin down--but whatever it is it's feel is definitely "vintage".
In terms of lyrical wit, my vote would have to go to "Vent" from the 2008 release, If I Could Only Make It--"What is it with rappers and guns? There are easier ways to settle things". I'm a sucker for songs which repeat and drone, and this does both to perfection for about three minutes... Actually, it does not so much repeat and drone as it spools and winds the listener to a crescendo where not only no more slack remains in the string of their soul, but to the point where that soul snaps. Also on this album is the song "3 Seconds", which, I am sorry to say left me a little non-plussed after the soulful event of "Vent", and that despite the violin (or is that a viola?) and the image of 'vultures in my head circling a dream dead'.
"Brick By Brick" on the 2007 release "The Julius Work", is impossible for me not to like, and not only because I think I heard mention of a guillotine. But possibly because the vocals have an excellent overdriven and slightly distorty quality as they croon "brick by brick, you bring me down" and in such a way that not only convinces me this song is the perfect expression for something which has happened to me, but which leaves no doubt in my mind that Rhubarb has 'been there too' at the walls of their body as its mortar weakens and its weight gives out... "Perfect Parallel", off of the same release, is one of those short perfect pieces which is so god damn melancholic its emotive core somehow becomes hopeful and happy... It is a love song, and if I were to compare it to another love song which has almost the exact same effect on my scabby self it would be "Winter Lady" from Leonard Cohen's first album, only with an extra electro-pad flourish underneath the the pithy not-quite-whine of love and life in a darkened room. For more thorough and more knowledgeable information on this unhewn stone:
http://www.myspace.com/rhubarbwhitenoise
http://www.worldofrhubarb.co.uk

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