Callum Brown maps memory’s fault lines on the hauntingly beautiful 'Robin’s Nest'

There’s something quietly arresting about the way Callum Brown writes. His songs arrive like half-remembered dreams, slipping between past and present with unsettling clarity. On his new full-length 'Robin’s Nest', the Brighton songwriter crafts a record that feels like a lived-in psychological landscape, where childhood imagery collides with adult reckoning in ways that are as disorienting as they are profound.

Having previously fronted a more abrasive outfit, Brown’s solo work retreats inward as he looks to lean into ambiguity. The writing feels instinctual, as though captured mid-thought, resisting tidy conclusions in favour of emotional truth. Scenes flicker in and out: domestic spaces morph into strange terrains, familiar faces blur at the edges, and the natural world becomes a kind of emotional anchor amid internal confusion.

The album’s opening moments set the tone with unsettling vividness. 'The Big Sheep' unfolds like a fractured fairytale, splitting between a child’s distorted perspective and an adult voice attempting to make sense of it all. Household objects take on mythic proportions as fear and imagination intertwine.

Later, 'At The River' carries a gentler melancholy, following siblings across farmland and back toward a home that no longer belongs to them. His phrasing lingers just long enough to let each line sink in, allowing the weight of absence to gather quietly.

What makes 'Robin’s Nest' so compelling is its refusal to simplify. Grief isn’t presented as a linear process but as something porous, something that seeps into memory and reshapes it. The influence of cinema is palpable, while the folk tradition beneath it all gives the record a rooted, earthy gravity.

This is a bold and introspective work that demands attention and rewards patience. With 'Robin’s Nest', Callum Brown offers a deeply human exploration of how we carry our histories, even when they refuse to stay still.