Watchhouse – Rituals
Spinning a Watchhouse record trends to transport me away from…whatever real-world crazy is the most troubling. My first two listens of their latest album, Rituals, occurred during a particularly rainy Colorado Saturday (we don’t deal well with that kind of gloom here) and, a couple days later, a less-than-productive meeting at my 9-to-5. Set against the cacophony of life in 2025, it almost seems unfair that the band (headed up by husband and wife Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz) can, seemingly without effort, consistently drop albums that go down so smoothly, but Rituals serves as another example of the pair’s ability to create simple beauty.
After Marlin and Frantz played together for roughly a decade under the name Mandolin Orange, the couple decided that a moderate reinvention was in order. Following a period of grief and touring fatigue, plus becoming parents for the first time, a new name reflecting small pleasures (“Watchhouse” comes from a favorite childhood spot of Marlin’s) was in order. The songs on the “new” band’s first (self-titled) record focused largely on life’s beauty, and Rituals adheres to that warmth. The record’s lead track, “Shape,” led by Marlin’s shimmery tenor guitar and featuring lovely fiddle work by Frantz, seeks just that kind of “other space” I’m talking about – “Let’s find someplace to go/Beyond this to and fro.” The album’s next song (and lead single), “All Around You,” finds that place…pretty much everywhere. Here, Marlin’s guitar and Frantz’s backing vocals, along with delicate percussion from Jamie Dick, help describe home as wherever happiness lies – “Ain’t it always just ahead and all around you too.”
The mid-tempo jangler “Beyond Meaning” continues on that home-is-where-you-are theme, while suggesting a place significantly happier than that could’ve-been-an-email meeting – “Because the work is never done if it’s fun.” And the band gets a little rock-y in the paired songs “Endless Highway (pt. 1)” “Sway/Endless Highway (pt. 2). The first half is a slow build with a lengthy instrumental coda which leads into the second; a somber, slightly more electric tune that flashes back to more troubled times – “I’m on the edge of atrophy/It’s time I learned to sway/But oh the dawn when we awake/To face an awful day” – before asserting that trying too hard may get in the way of actual doing – “I get to thinking if I thought about you less/Maybe we could just be as one.” But the album’s last track, “Patterns,” is where Watchouse, no matter their name, has always made its bread and butter – mandolin, gorgeous harmonies and warm imagery: “Ain’t it something, all the little patterns/That lead us home through our lives.” Indeed, it’s a pattern that’s served Marlin and Frantz well.
Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Firelight” – Marlin is the band’s songwriter and primary lead vocalist (with good reason – his voice is near-otherworldly). But, like any Watchhouse/Mandolin Orange album (or live show), some of the best moments come when Frantz takes the mic. Featuring Matt Smith’s dreamy pedal steel, this tune suggests a balm for the roughest of days – “I like the sight of you by my side/There at the end of a long day/Talking in the firelight.”
Rituals was produced by Ryan Gustafson and Andrew Marlin, engineered by Alli Rogers and mixed and mastered by D. James Goodwin. All songs written by Marlin. Musicians on the album include Andrew Marlin (vocals, bouzouki, mandolin, electric tenor guitar, 12-string guitar, harmonium, acoustic guitar, mandola, pump organ, piano), Emily Frantz (vocals, electric guitar, bouzouki, fiddle, acoustic guitar), Josh Oliver (vocals, electric guitar, banjo, 12-string guitar, acoustic guitar), Clint Mullican (bass), Ryan Gustafson (vocals, baritone guitar, bass, 12-string guitar, harmonica, piano), Jamie Dick (drums, percussion), Nat Smith (piano, mellotron, cello, effects) and Matt Smith (pedal steel).
Go here to order Rituals (out May 30): https://kf-merch.com/collections/watchhouse
Check out tour dates here: https://watchhouseband.com/
Enjoy our previous coverage here: Show Review: Watchhouse at the Ryman 9/4