Rumer - This Girl's In Love

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good album from Rumer

There's an awful lot of Bacharach and David on record (unsurprisingly, as they are one of the truly great songwriting teams of the 20^th Century)  and a good deal of it is in classic recordings by world-class singers.  My question was, do we really need yet another collection?  Well, on this evidence, yes we do.

Rumer is a very fine singer with a lovely voice.  I haven't always liked her choice of material, but when she gets it right she produces something really special – like her sublime version of Cifford T. Ward's Home Thought From Abroad, for example.  The material on this album is, of course, very good and Rumer sings it all very well, with some real highlights.  The production is generally pretty restrained, using largely piano and light-touch backing band and strings, which works very well because it highlights her beautiful voice.  She uses it to great effect here, phrasing and expressing truly beautifully in places (Close To You is wonderful, I think), an it's unfailingly true to the spirit of the songs.

If I have a reservation, it is that the album can sound just a tad samey after a while.  This may not bother you, because it's an album to relax to and allow to wash over you with waves of lovely sound, and it achieves that very well.  It's an impressive achievement and, if you like this style of music, I can recommend it.

Becky Warren - War Surplus

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Remarkably good

I think this is remarkably good, and for a debut album it is quite exceptional. It was a complete shot in the dark for me; I hadn't heard of Becky Warren but I was intrigued by the idea behind the album and it turned out to be a powerful, insightful and moving collection of very well crafted and performed songs.

War Surplus is the story of a veteran returning to the USA from service in Iraq terribly changed by PTSD, and the title is a bitterly ironic reference to this. The songs are all first person narratives by the veteran and his partner, which describe how things develop as he goes to war, his experiences there, his return and his inability to deal with the trauma and the consequences of it. It sounds grim, and it is in a way, but the songs are varied, musically appealing and sometimes even sing-along and the lyrics are exceptionally good. They are honest, insightful and written with understanding and compassion for both parties. They are some of the classiest lyrics I have heard from a new-ish artist for some time.

The songs are generally Country-tinged, often quite rocky –Take Me Back Home is an out-and-out rocker reminiscent of Jason Isbell's Super 8, for example - but with some very affecting and beautiful numbers, too; San Antonio is simply lovely and the closing track, Anything That Lasts, is just Warren and an acoustic guitar with a gut-wrenchingly poignant effect. The spirit of Springsteen's Born In The USA is obviously strong in this album, I get hints of Lucinda Williams, Eliza Gilkyson and others, but this is very much Becky Warren's own work and her own voice – and it's great.

The arrangements and production are very good, the band is excellent and this is an all-round classy piece of work. It's a long while since I have been so taken with a debut album and I can recommend this very warmly indeed.

Charlie Feathers - Jungle Fever

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

I think this is completely brilliant.  I'm delighted to have such a fine compilation, which is well put together and with good sound.

Charlie Feathers was a truly great Rockabilly star; he had a great voice, played a mean guitar and had an excellent, tight band which meant that his records were – well, they were just great, in my view.  I don't think there's a duff track among the 30 presented here and some, the title track included, are outstanding.  They are almost all under 3 minutes long and distil the spirit of Rockabilly into fine, compact little gems.  The sound is well transferred to digital and is clean while being pretty true to the original.  It doesn't sound to me as though anyone has tried to "improve" it, thank heavens.

Not much more to be said.  A fine collection of terrific tracks, which is warmly recommended.

Bert Jansch - Live at the 12 Bar

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fine live album

This is a really good recording of one of the great guitarists of the last 50 years.  Recorded in London in 1995, it captures both the excellence of Bert's playing and the atmosphere of a live performance.

This is just Bert and his guitar, and he's brilliant.  A glance at the track list will let you know what to expect: his usual mix of traditional songs (including Blackwater Side, which he pretty well made his own) and more modern, jazzier stuff.  It's all fantastically enjoyable; the guitar work is just miraculous in places – and there are a couple of minor fluffs which I like very much because it's what happens in live performance and gives the whole thing authenticity.  Bert's singing is also really good, in that voice which by any objective measure ought to be terrible but actually sounds wonderful in this repertoire.

The whole thing is excellently recorded and it's a really enjoyable album all round.  Warmly recommended.

Leonard Cohen 1934 - 2016

Hineni

When we were very young

We played and sang and loved your songs

And you have spoken to me ever since.

Half a lifetime later

And much too soon,

When my lovely, lovely sister’s

Wasted and mutilated body finally failed

She asked that you should sing her into the fire.

Your music has sounded throughout my life

And you have spoken wisdom to me.

The chords you played have pleased the Lord, Leonard;

May He be good to you

And in your heavenly mansion

May there be tea and oranges

And an unmade bed.

I wish you peace.

Shirley Collins - Lodestar

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A long-silent legend returns

It is really good to see the great Shirley Collins recording again.  This isn't a classic album, and nor is it an straightforward, relaxing listen, but it is good and it's a reminder of what a huge contribution she made to English folk music.

The songs are a pretty eclectic mix, from the enjoyable nonsense of Johnny Buckle to an arrangement of Orlando Gibbons's great madrigal The Silver Swan, but many of these are what Collins describes as "bloody old songs," with foreboding, death and gore in abundance.  It's what she feels comfortable singing these days – and that's good enough for me.

The arrangements and production by Ian Kearey (ex-Oysterband and all round musical good egg) are excellent.  Imaginative but never overdone and often with few instruments or just a solo guitar, they really bring these songs to life.  Collins's voice has emerged from decades of silence much deeper and huskier, slightly trembly at times and with, it has to be said, some dodgy intonation in places.  That's fine by me; it's a minor miracle that we're hearing that great voice at all and she still really knows how to put a song over, and how make herself its conduit rather than making the song a vehicle for the singer's ego.

Easy Listening this ain't, so it's probably one for seasoned old folkies like me (I'm proud to say that still have my original vinyl copies of No Roses, Anthems in Eden and others), but it's an honest, authentic and  involving album which I can recommend.