It’s often in the nature of those of us who see lyrics as a big part of music to look for, and to find, messages about life in the songs we listen to. Musicians can often articulate through their work what we could not express, and when we find common ground with a song’s protagonist it significantly alters our perception of the music. Sometimes it’s subtlety of deployment which makes a message resonant, however, and if anything threatens to spoil this considered debut LP by the Nils Olav project, it’s a slight lack of that subtlety.

The accomplished orchestral folk displayed on Nils Olav is infused with a timely message, if not an entirely original one – one which advocates that you “feed the soul”, and to quote a song title, to ‘Tear Your Pride in Two’ and embrace humility in the face of our materialistic “me” culture. It’s a set of ideas which is only likely to be voiced with increased intensity in music in times like these, but without the restraining hand of subtlety Andrew Patrick and his many collaborators can occasionally veer a little too close to sounding trite or lecturing.

Nevertheless, beside this minor niggle lies a record which makes good on the contributions of many talented and able people over a two-year recording period. Patrick’s co-conspirators include producer Dave Lynch, the Iskra String Quartet and Gabrielle Frödén of the wonderful Foreign Slippers. The result is that the album sounds like a labour of love, an orchestral love letter to winter and time which unfolds slowly over the best part of fifty minutes. ‘O Wonderful Night’ is a bewitching opener, a veritable hymn to a snowy winter day, and later highlights include the hazy, buzzing ‘Cog Song’.

The string arrangements and Patrick’s quiet but adaptable voice lend these songs a real sense of scale and gravitas; the sparseness of closer ‘Let Go’ is all the more affecting for how carefully a song like ‘Hallelu’ is built up instrumentally earlier on the album. Clearly, Nils Olav are a group of musicians who know instinctively how to deploy their musical tools in the most appropriate way, dependent on the song at hand. In sum, then, this is an album which, barring the odd lapse in lyrical restraint, is a calmly deliberate and entertaining effort, definitely worthy of a listen.