Rating: 5/5
Review:
Exceptionally good
I think this is exceptionally good. Ana Egge is a fine songwriter and a
distinctive singer with a wonderfully expressive voice. She brings both of these qualities to this
album and the result is something rather special.
The music can be loosely categorized as Americana,
but it's varied, haunting and infectious.
For example, the opener, Storm Comin', is quite a driving number with a
subtle but powerful beat, while the extraordinary Bully Of New York is a
quieter, contemplative song but both have an exceptionally haunting quality
about them. This is true of every song
here, I think, and it's due to the fine quality of Ana Egge's songs themselves,
the well-judged arrangements for her excellent, tight band and especially to
her terrific vocals. She has a rather
husky voice with a way of often hitting a note slightly off-centre and sliding
onto it, which produces a really powerful emotional effect. It's a world away from the uniform,
auto-tuned mediocrity in a lot of commercial music these days and I find it
quite mesmerising much of the time.
There are a lot of very fine female singer-songwriters
producing excellent stuff at the moment, and I think Ana Egge is up there with
the best of them. This is a very fine
album indeed, in my view, and I can recommend it very warmly.
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