The PassionAte Ones

For someone who knows little about music, this is a difficult album to describe. Not only because I lack the vocabulary, but mostly because Nourished By Time’s sophomore album, The Passionate Ones, resists blanket terms.

The Guardian has, in true fashion, branded the album ‘post-R&B’. I have no idea what that means and I don’t think The Guardian does either. In truth, the album stands proudly alongside previous projects - 2023 debut album Erotic Probiotic 2 and 2024 EP Catching Chickens -in its jaunty and sometimes downright bizarre melodic sensibilities. It is jangly, playful, percussive, synthy, snakingly anthemic when you least expect. It is funny and heartfelt, taking its time to reach dreamy heights. It is pure Nourished By Time.

The album art sees (the gorgeous) Marcus Brown, the solo brain behind the project, with his head in his hands. Indeed, opener Automatic Love begins minor and discordant, with flappy, wobbling synths. But there is hope there, and the song picks up with Brown’s trademark open vowels and wholesome guitar. Brown is optimistic and romantic – ‘Yeah, it was love that kept me waiting / It was love that got me through’. Maybe he is despairing on the album cover; maybe he is simply dreaming.

This pure energy is kept up on lead single Max Potential, an anthemic call-to-arms. Brown appears ready to embrace the heady thrill of chasing his dreams, repeating the warning ‘If I’m gonna go insane’. After all, what do you have to lose?

The album continues with languid conversations between guitar and bass in the moody It’s Time. The music ripples along like a car over cobbles. And always, Brown’s voice, slipping from clear and rich to breathy, faltering, when necessary, into a shaky plea.

Reaching new, dancey heights in following singles 9 2 5 and the charmingly-desperate BABY BABY, Brown remains defiantly anti-apathy, documenting ‘Working restaurants by day / Writing love songs every night’ and tying his desire to undress a girl with the familiar sound of ever-approaching atrocity: ‘If you can bomb Palestine, you can bomb Mondawmin’.

Brown teaches us to live in line with our desires. He wants us to keep trying and, above all, to keep falling in love. The penultimate track, When The War Is Over, is an electro-pop take on a ballad. Its percussion glitters as Brown threatens surrender to his love-object. It’s sweet and self-abnegating. It’s dreamily staring out of the bus window of a warm and purple Dublin evening, relaxing your eyes and letting the lights marry one another.

The lyricism and delivery is struck by a corny sincerity that only a talented American can pull off. The whole message resists irony. Do your best. There is some YOLO mentality here. But somebody needs to do it, and Nourished By Time does it with remarkable originality.

4/5

- I 22 August 2025