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.
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