Empty Garden

Just a year after his debut album, Melbourne’s Harrison Storm returns with this meditative follow-up inspired by his personal journey through heartache. It’s easy to hear the influence of artists like Bon Iver and Jeff Buckley as Storm applies his feathery falsetto to songs full of both open space and open-ended questions. After the opening “For Your Love” introduces more atmospheric rock flourishes, Storm captures the depths of loneliness on the rousing “Empty Garden” and “Someone Else”, a duet with Swedish artist Winona Oak about losing the person you thought was yours alone. He doesn’t shy away from autobiography, mentioning his age (28) as he takes stock before an unexpected brass arrangement enters the frame during “Follow On”. It’s to his credit as a songwriter—and one-time busker—that Storm knows he can’t spend the entire album looking backwards. So on the closing “Am I Dreaming?”, he sounds more upbeat, musically and thematically, as he farewells lost love over a percolating beat. It sounds like a very determined step forward for Storm, zooming out to see the bigger picture.