It’s difficult to find a band that transcends to the highs of Noble Dust. The Boston-based sextet creates music that fits comfortably in the folk canon but might be better thought of as art songs. Buttressed by horns and strings, the band’s music soars above classification, creating moving stories of resilience and despair. A Picture For a Frame is based off of the World War II-era letters Noble Dust vocalist/guitarist Emily Cunningham’s grandparents sent across the globe, from Roxbury, MA to the South Pacific theater.
Which is not to say that every song is a soaring epic. “Abbey” is a driving pop song of a lover who knows she’ll get the last laugh. This is where A Picture For a Frame really tees off: focusing on complex emotions — some of them unflattering — in the face of war, isolation, and yearning. “87” is especially poignant, its intimate arrangement carefully considering how each Noble Dust member will contribute to the narrator’s fondest wish.
Noble Dust has no problem with epic thundering, though. “April” and “Red Letters” consider the violent scope of the war from the soldiers’ views, juxtaposing imagery of carnage and sweet domesticity with ominously mounting strings. “The Architect” serves as the eye in the hurricane, an eerie meditation of the fates of all those who died needlessly, but beautifully.
A Picture For a Frame is worthy of many listens: the rich texture of the music is matched only by the dense lyrics that reward intent listening as much as the casual catching of an errant line in the ear. This album is a triumph, and you will get out of it everything you put in.