Herbal Tea is the solo project of the Bristol, UK-based singer-songwriter Helena Walker, and Hear as the Mirror Echoes is her debut album, released August 29 on vinyl, cassette, and digital through Ordinal Records in the US and Gold Day in the UK. Drawing upon dream pop, shoegaze, and indie folk, Herbal Tea blends these influences seamlessly and gives them an appealingly lo-fi, DIY spin. Cohering into a work of quiet, assured beauty, the record’s nine songs mark the emergence of a major talent.
Herbal Tea hasn’t completely come out of nowhere; Helena Walker brought the project to light on Bandcamp with the digital single “second heart” back in 2018. Additional singles followed along with the “Unwrap” EP on cassette in 2021. She’s also established Herbal Tea in live performance, including a tour with Gia Margaret and opening a sold-out show by Ex:Re.
Hear as the Mirror Echoes’ opener “Seventeen” goes heavy on the dream pop drift, but with a solid songwriting core that can bring to mind both Hope Sandoval and Memphis-era Chan Marshall, and with piano as the melodic foundation lending distinctiveness. Guitar fortifies the song from way down in the mix, but with “Grounded,” acoustic folky strum rises to the fore and combines with some gorgeous vocal sweep.
As the track progresses, the instrumentation expands to briefly include percussion, the momentum increasing only to scale back into layered dream-poppy textures and a backward masked coda. “Kitchen Floor (4 A.M.)” retains the guitar focus but is less folky, drinking instead from the eternal fount of melancholy lo-fi pop.
“Submarine” turns up the distortion and brings the drums back in for a more rock-aligned approach, complete with additional fuzz and a late crescendo that’s almost symphonic. But then “Driving Slow” redirects into a very solo indie folky scenario that could give fans of Iron & Wine and Josephine Foster shudders of delight. “Garden” taps a sturdier folk root and augments it with piano and billows of shoegaze.
By the arrival of “Frank,” Herbal Tea’s combination of folky strum, dream pop glisten, and shoegazing crackle and haze is well-established and consistently appealing, with Walker’s vocals, pretty but robust, the icing on the cake. But “Sundown” goes it sans voice as the music delivers a vivid dose of gradually unwinding psychedelia, and then “Kara” picks up that thread but with Walker back at the mic to reassert the pop edge.
These late tracks take Hear as the Mirror Echoes into a wonderfully woozy direction, as the ending of “Kara” brandishes a cinematic feel. The range highlighted across the set keeps matters fresh but ultimately focused, with Herbal Tea’s musical personality shining through with clarity.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
