Leeds/London based band Pengilly’s craft beautifully pensive, evocative arrangements to accompany songwriter Ric Hollingberry’s solemnly affecting vocals. The band take their name from an old shop in the town where Hollingberry grew up (as in “Pengilly’s shop”), but the use of the possessive case of the name could also reference the intimate nature of the songs. The tracks grapple with universal issues like adulthood, nostalgia and self-realization as filtered through the context of very mundane, solo activities. The title track, for example, is about sitting on a grassy hill watching cars on a highway, and “Writing Things Down and Thinking Things Over” is, in part, about working from the light from a laptop screen. Indeed, the Toby’s Hill EP is instrumentally lush and pastoral, but despite the grand, swirling-through-the-air arrangements, its power to connect with a listener is more individual and down-to-earth. Give it a listen now.
You can download the 4-track EP for “pay what you like” at Bandcamp.
