Beth Orton’s The Ground Above marks a life-affirming return

It’s rare that veteran artists surprise not only listeners but themselves. That genuinely seemed to be the case with British singer-songwriter Beth Orton’s 2022 album, Weather Alive. What began with a thrifted upright piano being dragged into her garden shed grew into a collection of songs that, as Orton described them, captured “someone waking up to their own life.” If that awestruck, atmospheric album felt like a first pair of timid footsteps out into the world, then The Ground Above finds Orton a bit further down the path, crushing the soil between her toes as she tries to connect with others, embrace the present, and insist upon survival. 

The title track opens like a muffled transmission that can’t quite break through—not unlike the signals of Weather Alive, only traveling this time through the ground rather than the ether or water. The similarities begin to fade when Orton’s familiar alto emerges like “a blade of spring released.” She sounds no less confessional or vulnerable as she weighs the silent yet sure gravities of grief and love tugging at her; however, “The Ground Above,” both the song and the album, finds her far more grounded than last time out. After a first verse that feels floaty and disconnected, Orton descends and waits patiently as a tailwind of jazz percussion, guitar, and trumpet finds her back. “And you kissed me / And I knew what I was for,” she tells us. “And it wiped me out like chalk off of a board.” It’s a mundane, yet striking image—one of both devastating erasure and potential renewal—that she returns to as the track erupts into a flurry by song’s end, Orton’s voice landing several haymakers when it chooses to make landfall.  

Many of the most compelling moments on The Ground Above portray Orton as a bandleader and producer rather than a singer marooned on an island with her piano. On the gritty, smoky “Cigarette Curls,” she feels rooted at her Wurlitzer as a room full of plunking, rhythm, and guitars move about and brush up against her. It’s as if the band are equal parts actors and witnesses to Orton’s reflections on an old friendship, memories told in a brilliant juxtaposition of vocal melodies and blunt confessions (“I was running / I was afraid”). Similarly, the warm, organic rush of “Waiting”—propelled by trumpet and lightened by organ and flute—sounds like a liberating breath as she “dances [her] way home to [his] love.” Given her ability to emote as a single voice, it’s all the more powerful to hear Orton harmonizing with the array of musical options a full band offers, her vocals taking shape within these songs rather than orbiting or hovering above.

The Ground Above also sets itself apart by turning the breakup song utterly on its head. On the torn “I’ll Miss You,” Orton’s protagonist imagines future life without her partner—thinking about the times she’ll miss him most. As devastating as that prospect may be, the song lands on a note of resilience and self-preservation. “Honey, I’ll always love you / I’d move the stars just to find you,” she achingly promises. “But I can’t live in the dark.” Its thematic partner, “Love You Right,” can’t envision the same outcome, instead taking the tact of trying again and again. “For a life that’s cruel / You made it kind,” she reflects in appreciation. “And I only ever want to learn to love you right.” On the previous track, her love is worth moving the stars for if it would help; here, that person himself is the star that she needs to follow. While the latter might seem less practical, Orton reasons that the most likely place to set the present world right is in these relationships.

Even the tracks that don’t quite fork as much lightning still reveal something remarkable about Orton’s songcraft. Through the somber gut feelings of “Before I Knew,” she again reveals a deft lyrical hand through repetition. Subtle changes in tense or pronouns—minor enough alterations to be sung typos—connect Orton to others, flip vantage points, or summon a feeling from a different time in life. While many poets reach for other words to say something similar, Orton tweaks syntax to show another perspective entirely. “Celestial Light,” an ode to solitude, does cast her further outside the record’s grounded, communal aura, but there’s no denying how haunting Orton’s voice sounds pressing up against more ethereal backing. When her protagonist hints that she might “throw [her] arms around the world again” after years of loneliness, it’s impossible not to hope that nudge arrives one day.

“Otherside” closes The Ground Above on one of the strongest notes of Orton’s career. She greets the blackbird’s morning affirmation and asks for clarity. All that answers back is the simple fact that her heart still pumps, that her lungs are full (“You are alive / You are still here”). Strings, horns, and voices lift her skyward until survival itself becomes birdsong. Like the best parts of The Ground Above, we’re not left with answers or promises about what lies ahead. We’re left to listen, hum, dance to, or even sing out our own dawn song, a quiet declaration that we’ve made it through another night. [Partisan]

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