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The Rogers Sisters - Purely Evil
Troubleman Unlimited TMU-101 Reviewed by SD
Bursting with spiky guitars, Purely Evil is an impressive garage-pop debut from Brooklyn-based trio, the Rogers Sisters. Their sound has a raw edginess to it, giving this album an almost homemade feel (hardly surprising when you consider it was recorded in two days). But what Purely Evil lacks in high production values, it more than compensates for in attitude and energy. Opening with 'Zero Point', the Rogers Sisters start as they mean to go on; heavy bass, fast-paced drums and three vocalists with a style closer to shouting than singing. In other words, post-new wave at its best. The combination of the different vocal parts is very effective, particularly when in response to one another such as on 'I Can Tell You How I Feel About You'. Miyuki Furtado's stuttering vocals are reminiscent of Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo fame (especially on 'The Money Life'), whilst Jennifer and Laura Rogers seem to prefer the style of the B-52s. Purely Evil is a straightforward, energetic effort. Various influences are plain for anyone to hear (Gang of Four, Devo), and in this sense this album doesn't offer anything particularly new or different. But since this is twenty-eight minutes worth of post-new wave goodness, who really cares about originality anyway?

Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk
EPIC EPC 508782 2 Reviewed by RP
Tori Amos is a musician for whom I will always have time. Her talent cannot be weighed and measured in number ones but the doggedness and passion with which she has pursued a song writing career speaks for itself. It was sparked into life following a move to London in the early 1990s where the liberating, sometimes erotic, often earnest and most deeply held personal messages in these songs were better received. To my mind the performance of one song in particular encapsulates the acute pain and inner strength which permeates all her music: A barely whispered and unaccompanied rendition of 'Me And A Gun' that cuts you to the bone as it tackles the highly emotive and devastating topic of her rape by an armed "fan". This is a cathartic moment of the kind that has informed every groove cut and album mixed since. There is such candour and startling honesty here. And it is that level of intensity and an overpowering feeling of integrity which can be found throughout the eighteen-track CD from 2002, Scarlet's Walk. Her stroll around America charts spiritual and emotional growth through a series of intelligent and literate journeys. There is of course a thinly veiled reference to Gone With The Wind in its title but I think it's safe to say that Amos (despite her North Carolina roots) is not the sheltered, haughty and spoilt Southern belle in need of instructions in life. She is instead a guide rather than the tutor and while it is a minor distinction the paths she treads and the opinions voiced are made all the more convincing because of it. For seventy-four minutes we are treated to these beautifully lyrical visions of that twisted and manipulated nation state - a juxtaposition that is not lost on the listener. In songs like 'Don't Make Me Come To Vegas' and 'Amber Waves' she shows us the all-consuming appetite that exists for sexual exploitation and mistreatment both at the personal level during relationships with boyfriends, husbands and lovers and through pornography coldly viewed by strangers. There are the casual religious asides often coupled to drug references or prostitution in 'Wampum Prayer', 'Virginia' and 'Pancake'. Comparisons between their contrasting yet inescapably addictive natures are exhaustively explored and condemned. The track sequence is important too. An exquisite pastoral gem about separation such as 'Your Cloud' butts up hard against the misogyny and homophobia of 'Pancake'. Beauty and hatred are accentuated as a consequence.

Tori Amos - Tales of a Librarian
ATLANTIC 7567-93223-2 Reviewed by RP
This is a seductive and intelligently constructed collection of twenty tracks spanning her best work from the 1990s - a set that also includes two new songs and two re-recorded b-sides in the form of 'Angels', 'Snow Cherries From France', 'Mary' and 'Sweet Dreams'. Yet arguably the most telling aspect has to be the imaginative way in which this album has been put together. The title alone has special importance. It gives us a clear and unambiguous statement about the role Tori Amos sees for herself and any like-minded artists as they work through the constraints and tensions of a modern-day environment. Tradition and the Individual Talent (T.S. Eliot) this is not. Nor is it an unnecessarily bookish and pretentious compilation. However, her writing and performances go beyond the boundaries of simple "cherry picked" entertainment. She is not one of those insipid artists who take the easy road and the easy buck. Her songs are reservoirs of knowledge and lived experiences that should be drawn upon when needed. Moreover, she conveys these messages in a manner that avoids arrogance and didacticism. All the songs (through the liner notes) are prefixed, summarised, catalogued and cross-indexed against library style classifications. An act, which sheds even more light on a woman who has bravely put the substance of career uncertainty, grief and those barely describable tragedies of her personal life into every word penned and enunciated. Consequently, 'Playboy Mommy' taken from Choirgirl Hotel is categorised under 610 Medicine and Health and 618 Miscarriage. 'Cornflake Girl' (Under The Pink) falls into 170 Ethics and 177 Ethics of Social Relations (Betrayal). While 'Way Down' (Boys For Pele) should be considered in relation to 150 Psychology and 154 Subconscious and Altered States. And 'Precious Things' (Little Earthquakes) rests within 920 Collective Biography. Overall these are essential insights that expand our understanding of these familiar songs.

Silver Sun - Silver Sun
Polydor 537 208-2 Reviewed by MC
If the Beach Boys were alive in 1997, and significantly closer to puberty, they might just have made Silver Sun. This eponymous debut album from Silver Sun was a blast of pop that has yet to be rivalled. Silver Sun mix heavy, fuzzed up guitars with Californian surf harmonies, creating an instantly impressive wall of sound, and it was their natural talent for penning simple, perfect pop melodies that stands them so far above everything since. But this pop gloss was underpinned by sharp witty lyrics which dredge through the murkier topics of adolescence and modern life. This dark and cynical take on growing up comes as all the more of a surprise for the saccharine production, a trick that the Beautiful South have long played. But whereas the Beautiful South make coffee table music Silver Sun make candy punk with a bite. This record is tight, fast and filled with adrenaline, and Silver Sun play on this with the album structure: its tracks flash seamlessly past with a fast/slow variation that really works Silver Sun never managed to hit this high again, and the album remains unequalled. Silver Sun is a masterpiece, every song simply perfect. As with all the best pop, the attraction of this record is immediate, but you'll never tire of it.

Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
Polydor 986 605-8 Reviewed by MC
The Scissor Sisters are much less a band, and much more the sum of their influences: Pink Floyd, The Bee Gees, Duran Duran, Frankie goes to Hollywood… the list goes on and on. Essentially this record is a pastiche of music from three decades. Scissor Sisters must have been sure they were on to a winner, cherry picking their styles (a little funk here, a dash of electroclash there and a pinch of country western) but the slightly surprising outcome is that they end up somewhere between Bowie and Elton John, and closer to Elton than David at that. Setting about ripping off just about every modern classic is rarely a wise endeavour and this album should be terrible but it isn't. Scissor Sisters just about manage to pull it off. This is due in no small part to their stunning cover of 'Comfortably Numb', sitting smugly amongst a superb six track opening blast. It also helps that they keep a thoroughly modern perspective on proceedings throughout, pulling the whole thing together into a cohesive recording. Sometimes though you have to honest to yourself, this album can at times seem just too cool. I don't know if I will still be listening to this album in six months time, but for now at least, it's damn good fun. If there really, truly, has to be an eighties revival, then at least let it sound like this.
Supplier: www.diverserecords.com Tel: 01633 263526

Mary Coughlan - Long Honeymoon
Evangeline Recorded Works Ltd GEL 4014 Reviewed by RP
Whilst we have in the past come to expect dark almost morose albums from this sorrowful Irish diva, Long Honeymoon proves to be something of a departure. The familiar heart rendering themes give way to a mischievous, amusing and languidly paced set that is beautifully played and sung in an open and attractive jazz and blues style. The songs are an intriguing selection that includes material like Gershwin's 'I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard' and the Richard Rogers penned 'It Never Entered My Mind'. There are also cleverly arranged and worked versions of a Tom Waits 'Lucky Day' and the Elvis Costello title track. But the improvised approach to Lee Hazelwood's 'These Boots Are Made For Walking' seems a little mannered. Sometimes, though, there is also a feeling that Coughlan is straining too hard to win us over. An example would be her rather lack lustre performance of Bruce Cockburn's 'Blues Got The World'. She's straining at the leash, gets a bit ragged and is clearly uncomfortable with this raucous and lively paced music. It certainly needs a more powerful and focused voice to back it up.

The Cribs - The Cribs
Wichita Recordings Webb 058CD Reviewed by MC
The Cribs sound frighteningly similar to a sixth form band, and their debut album sounds frighteningly like a homemade demo, and yet, somehow, I remain strangely drawn to it. But then, recorded at Toerag Studios, you expect the album to be a bit shabby. This though is something else again: this album sounds genuinely rubbish. So, why then, would you spend your hard earned cash on The Cribs? Well, because you might just like it.
Scattered throughout the album are a handful of bite-size singles. These tracks are satisfyingly reminiscent of the Strokes at their most chaotic, with the slightly off beat, deadened guitar lines. But The Cribs bring a certain home-grown naivety and freshness to this that the Strokes have since lost, and is now seldom found outside the school disco.
Avoiding basic filler tracks, the remainder of the album displays a greater degree of experimentation and freedom that most records, with all the roughness that entails. The Cribs are no White Stripes, but they share the confidence that allows them to keep their music loose and fluid, with plenty of opportunity to grow.
This record is sparse, rough and simple. It is, perhaps, not the best album ever made, but it remains worth a try. Whilst it lacks a final coat of polish, if you are looking for a good raw recording then look no further.

Kelly Willis - What I Deserve
Rykodisc rcd 10458 Reviewed by RP
Kelly Willis (pre-makeover) is still soft on the gaze and gentle to the ear on an album where that distinctive whoop and twang heard in these thirteen slow burning country numbers is more prominent than it was for her more recent
outings. Tracks such as ‘Talk Like That’ are a welcome contrast to all those images where she makes a heart beat faster and faster with tales of loves bad, happy or sad of which she sings so well. Its charming country waltz tempo mimics the meandering Oklahoma drawl of a companion who has pricked half-forgotten thoughts of home and a distant past, memories that have lain dormant through restless years on the road. This also serves as a resonant metaphor for those musical journeys in a career that has lead her to the recording studios of Austin, Texas for this CD released back in 1999. The instrumental fabric throughout this disc with its guitars, piano and Hammond B-3 (as
well as some lively Amy Noelle Farris bow work and finger plucking of fiddle and mandolin) gives these thread bare themes a suitably modern dress code in a smartly engineered and well-balanced Dave McNair production.

Kevin Montgomery - 2.30am
Syren Records 65902102302 Reviewed by AH
With his father Bob a member of Buddy Holly’s pre-Crickets band and his mother Carol a talented backing singer (she sang the high parts on Elvis Presley’s ‘Suspicious Minds’), it was inevitable that Kevin Montgomery would find his way into the music business. Although he records independently these days, Montgomery began his career on major label A&M, where he released the critically acclaimed Fear Nothing. Many years on the road have honed his storytelling style of songwriting which can be likened to Bruce Springsteen and Rodney Crowell. 2.30am contains 12 beautifully constructed Montgomery originals and one cover, a storming version of Springsteen’s ‘No Surrender’, delivered slow and sexy and all the better for it.
Montgomery doesn’t rock as hard as Springsteen, he prefers a more mid-paced approach, a style more suited to his controlled, slightly grainy voice. That voice hits the heart hard though, especially when he wraps it around evocative ballads such as ‘I Can’t Drive You From My Mind’ and album tour-de-force ‘Fear Nothing’. If this song, with its simple "Yeah, you are something/Fear Nothing" chorus doesn’t tug your heartstrings I suggest you get down the doctors and ask him to check your pulse. 2.30am has got it all and if Montgomery keeps up this level of quality Springsteen will be in real danger of losing his crown.
Supplier: www.hotrecords.uk.com

Jewel - 0304
Atlantic 7567 93209-2 Reviewed by RP
The Alaskan-born actress, poet and singersongwriter, Jewel Kilcher, has boldly stated that this album is a modern take on swinging lyrically driven big band music much in the tradition of Cole Porter! Well, I doubt whether any of the fifteen songs here will ever achieve the enduring resonance, wit or sophistication of ‘Night And Day’ perhaps because Jewel’s lyrics are written for a far more knowing audience in far less genteel times.
They are, however, rhythmically and instrumentally set down in a catchy dance style fashion. It is just too ambitious to expect explicit lines like "The Mayor has no cash. He said he spent it on hookers and hash" (‘Stand’) or "I will mesmerise with milky thighs and languid eyes" (‘Leave The Lights On’) to woo you with their innocence and charm. Jewel does though have an intelligent and evocative way with words. Usually these are reserved for the love songs but in ‘Haunted’, an unsettling song that is taken from the stalker’s perspective, she strikes at the heart of it with "I will come to you in the still of the night and I will crush you with the burden of sight". An enigmatic album that hints at but never quite attains its goals.

Richie Havens - Live At The Cellar Door
Five Star FS1001CD Reviewed by AH
Richie Havens burst to prominence back in the 1960’s, firstly in Greenwich Village as part of the protest folk explosion and then in 1969 at Woodstock, where his gentle songs of peace, love and understanding found their natural home and spoke to a generation.
He’s still recording today, as well as running an organisation he helped found called The Natural Guard, a group who teach young people about ecological and environmental issues.
Live At The Cellar Door is an amalgam of two shows Havens recorded back in the early Seventies. The first eight tracks are from The Cellar Door in Washington D.C. and the last four are taken from a Santa Monica show two-years later.
The band is stripped back and simple; Havens and Paul Williams on guitar, Eric Oxendine on Bass and Joe Price on percussion. This arrangement gives the performances an intimate fell and creates the perfect backdrop for Havens’ highly distinctive voice. His rendition of George Harrison’s ‘Here Comes The Sun’ is mighty fine, as is the cover of
Fred Neil’s immortal classic ‘Dolphins’, Although the definitive version remains Tim Buckley’s The D.C. shows are the better recordings; the Santa Monica ones are a little flat and uninspiring. As a historical document though, it’s well worth owning.
Supplier: www.hotrecords.uk.com

The Delays - Faded Seaside Glamour
Rough Trade rtraddvcd114 Reviewed by MC
The Delays follow a long line of guitar bands trying desperately to sell albums based on light pop ballads. Whilst a few of these bands succeed and re-sculpt the charts, most disappear without trace after the second album. For the handful of great bands you can name, there are scores that you might dimly remember hearing about. The question
is, to which category do The Delays belong?
Faded Seaside Glamour opens with an impossibly good three-track set piece, with two singles standing proudly after an ethereal opening track. If this record could maintain the beauty and power of these tracks, it would undoubtedly stand amongst my top ten albums ever. Unfortunately this album is clogged with filler. It’s not a bad
album, not by a long way, but they just don’t hold the pace. It’s hard to see where they go wrong, as there are a few good tracks embedded in the second half of the album, but somehow it just fails to thrill.
That’s not to say you should pass this record by, quite the opposite. It’ll sound great in the sun, and I’m sure it will grow with familiarity, but it’s not quite there just yet. Buy this album for four or five songs, and make generous use of the skip button, and you’ll still consider it worth the money.

Charlie Musselwhite - Sanctuary
Real World CDRW117 Reviewed by AH
Charlie Musselwhite is the greatest living exponent of the blues harmonica. He has won countless W.C. Handy Awards in a career spanning 30 years and has recorded with some of the all-time greats, as well as racking up an impressive collection of solo recordings, Sanctuary being his latest, and possibly greatest, release.
Everything on this album, from the choice of musicians and the songs to the singing and the playing, reeks of class. It was a stroke of genius on Charlie’s part to bring in legendary Texan guitarist Charlie Sexton for these sessions. Sexton is one of the world’s greatest players and a fine artist in his own right. If you can find it check out his marvellous solo album Under The Wishing Tree, a bona-fide classic he cut in 1995.
Sanctuary’s approach reminds me so much of that album; it’s moody and dark in places but it also possesses a strange ethereal quality, thanks in no small part to Sexton’s mastery of his instrument and Musselwhite’s eerie vocals. Musselwhite’s harmonica is not to the fore, it just blends in and adds to the atmosphere in a beautiful, otherworldly way. Don’t listen to any one track, play ‘Sanctuary’ from start to finish and marvel at its wonder. Buy it if you love the blues, buy it if you don’t – its appeal is universal.

Carrie Newcomer - The Gathering of Spirits
Philo PHCD 1243 Reviewed by RP
Newcomer is a consummate professional and veteran performer who has with The Gathering Of Spirits (her ninth album to date) given us a CD that transcends the routine topicality and unfounded optimism of the folk idiom. Bold and determined, she takes worthy concerns about social justice and those indelible experiences gleaned in a Quaker upbringing and then nourishes your mind through a brand of contemplative lyricism which immediately engages you on a philosophical common ground. Half the battle is won by Carrie’s expressive voice. None of that trapped nerve, tie-dyed trilling here.
These richly textured vocals are brimming over with power, volume and projection. It impregnates her songs about personal suffering like ‘I’m Still Standing’ and those wider upheavals of the World heard on ‘Little Earthquakes’ with an intensity and defiance that reverberates from one verse to the next. Don’t be fooled by those vulnerable looks either. There is a steeliness and well-practised art behind those eyes, one that seamlessly traverses material as varied as a reflective bluegrass ‘Silver’ or plaintive ‘I Heard An Owl’. Her versatility extends beyond these sub-genres to permeate the superbly crafted arrangements for acoustic and electric guitars, bass, dobro, cello, accordian, piano and banjo that lie beneath those strongly sung yet remarkably supple lines.

Dave Kelly - Resting My Bones
Hypertension 1209HYP Reviewed by AH
Dave Kelly is a veteran of the UK blues scene and when he’s not fronting his own band he can be found rockin’ it up with Paul Jones and Co. in The Blues Band. Resting My Bones is a collection of originals and well chosen covers recorded over a four-year period and the musicians used here form the nucleus of Kelly’s touring band, which includes original Dire Straits drummer Pick Withers.
The five original tracks cover country blues (‘Life After Love’), down home country shuffles (‘Velocity Of Love’) and swinging slide boogie (‘Longing For You Baby’) and feature Kelly’s superb mastery of the electric guitar and dobro. He’s a fine singer too, with a warm and easy going style that compliments the choice of songs. The best of the covers is Steve Earle’s ‘My Old Friend The Blues’, a beautiful song respectfully handled by Kelly with some divine slide playing enchancing the song’s message of loneliness and despair. There are also excellent versions of ackson
Browne’s ‘World In Motion’, Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were A Carpenter’ and a lovely country tune called ‘City Of New Orleans’ which features mournful violin work from Steve Simpson and more of Kelly’s delicate slide work.
Resting My Bones consistently delights and will appeal to anyone who’s ever bought a Bonnie Raitt album

Black Nielson - The Seahorse Boe
Truck Records TRUCK 013 Reviewed by SD
You have to give credit to Truck Records, a hardworking, independent label with the ability to produce great albums on a small budget. After all, how many other record companies would donate the profits from their annual festival to Amnesty International! Trouble is it does rather eat into the promotional budget, limiting exposure of gems like this. Building upon the evident potential of their debut album (Still Life Hear Me), Southampton based Black Nielson have crafted a sophisticated and sometimes haunting follow-up. ‘Some Nights Villains’ and ‘Your Faint Heart and Guardian’ (complete with a generous sprinkling of flutes and trumpets), are particularly lovely tracks. However, this is not to imply that Black Nielson are in short supply of upbeat, lo-fi moments. You only have to listen to ‘Tteezzer’ with its chaotic guitars to realise that.
Singer Mike Gale has a unique voice that sounds even better this time round, with more adventurous backing. The female vocal part on ‘Life Is Different For You’ is especially effective when coupled with the pedal steel. Listening to such songs, it isn’t hard to see why the band has invited comparisons with the likes of Grandaddy and Sparklehorse.
The Seahorse Boe appropriately closes with the beautiful ‘Conflict K’, building to a crescendo of violins and guitars. Black Nielson have created something special here; let’s just hope people get a chance to listen to it.

Carlos Guitarlos - Straight From The Heart
Nomad Records NRCD-001 Reviewed by RP
Carlos Guitarlos, aka Carlos Ayala, is an L.A. legend. Two decades ago he played in the famous bar band Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs who were a frightening collision of big personalities and a blues-punk genre. They lived hard and fast, womanising, drug taking and drinking beer by the bucket load. Before overcoming all that substance abuse Carlos had descended into the streets of San Francisco’s Mission District busking simply to survive. Now he’s clean again and laying down a varied and wonderfully versatile mixture of chords that are informed by his deeply confessional style.
And oh boy! does he have plenty to say on the subject of living a life to excess on tracks like ‘When The Pain stops Killing Me’, ‘Women & Whiskey’ and ‘The Sea Of All My Troubles’. Those self-destructive years have left him diabetic and suffering a serious heart condition, yet there’s nothing frail about the spirited duelling as guitar licks are traded with his fellow musicians. That infectious zydeco rhythm on an opening ‘Damn Atchafalaya’ confirms it. The body may be pretty beat up, but that voice although ravaged by all these experiences has a reassuring, no make that a commanding presence as lyrics are delivered with authority and soul. It’s an amazingly expressive seventeen-track set that was recorded and mixed in just one unbelievable day.
Supplier: www.hotrecords.uk.com

Amy Fradon - Small Time News
Leo Rising Records Reviewed by AH
These days female singer/songwriters pour out of the woodwork with alarming regularity. A fair few are pretty average, some are pretty good and some are plain bloody marvellous (check out Jann Arden, Beth Hart and Trish Murphy for examples of the latter.)
Amy Fradon’s not a new kid on the block. She released six albums when she was working as a duo with Leslie Ritter, and Small Town News follows hard on the heels of her debut solo album Passion Angel, released to much critical acclaim in 1999. On the strength of Small Town News it’s quite easy to see why the press have been championing her cause. What we have here is an album of mainly self-penned tunes covering a wide variety of musical bases; country, blues, folk, (contemporary not traditional) and breezy jazz are all present in the mix, and she nails every style down with a voice of crystalline purity. The backing is mainly acoustic and all the musicians play their part beautifully.
It’s hard to pick a favourite track because each song oozes its own peculiar charm, but special mention has to go to ‘Silver Wings’, a touching tribute to the band’s Rick Danko.
Small Town News is a fine album and should go a long way towards introducing this talented artist to a much wider audience

Animals That Swim - Happiness From A Distant Star
Snowstorm Storm 010 LP Reviewed by RP
If Hank Starrs’ band released albums more frequently then they could rightly be described as perennial under achievers. However there’s been a five-year hiatus between Happiness From A Distant Star and the unfashionable I Was The King. Throughout the 1990s they simply ploughed their own furrow ignoring the advance of the New Wave and Britpop to play mellow acoustic and electric guitar-based rock music that is punctuated by keyboards, Derek Crabtree’s trumpet and the rich baritone voice from Starr.
Evocative lyrics and wry observations pinpoint the many tiny often quite insignificant moments that fill a lifetime. Yes, birth, falling in love and death feature but it’s the dancing naked on the lawn (‘Seven days’) or the half-remembered smell of perfume (‘Homunculus’) which fills in those gaps between the bigger events. This is of course a semi-autobiographical song about an unfulfilled and frustrated individual but Starr and co-writer,
Barker both understand that a joyless existence is a waste of a life. The opening track, ‘All Your Stars Are Out’, is in some ways reminiscent of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions but Animals That Swim are far less literate or melancholic beasts. A diverting and attractively framed album nonetheless.

Alvin Lee - In Tennessee
Repertoire: Repuk 1029 Reviewed by AH
This Album represents something of a dream come true for Alvin Lee, the charismatic front man and lead guitarist of legendary British blues rockers Ten Years After. As a 14 year old Lee was inspired to learn guitar when he heard Scotty Moore’s playing on those early Elvis Presley recordings, so when he got the chance to record with his hero
he wasted no time in catching a plane to Nashville. The album was cut at Scotty’s private studios with original Presley drummer D.J. Fontana, double bassist Pete Pritchard, pianist Willie Rainsford and Organist Tim Hinckley
providing Stellar back up. Not surprisingly the album has the feel of those early rock n’ roll records and it’s clear that Alvin and the lads are having a major ball. Lee’s guitar playing certainly seems to have been given a new lease of life. It swings with a passion and a fire that’s been missing in some of his more recent outings.
The eleven tracks were recorded in only two-days in the studio and the lack of sonic tinkering really pays off. "Those guys put everything into the feel of the music" Lee explains in the liner notes, "Being flashy or virtuoso does not come into it.
Just get the feel and keep it in the pocket". Just for good measure the band finish with a rollicking version of Ten Years After anthem ‘I’m Goin’ Home’… Presley style. Fun with a capital ‘F’.

Lizzie West - Holy Road
Warner Bros 9362484172 Reviewed by AH
I bought this album when it came out in 2003 and remember the immediate impact its catchy songs had on me. It was in the summertime and all I could think of as I listened was how wonderful any of the thirteen slices of perfect pop would sound pumping out of the radio.
You see, Holy Road is one of those very rare beasts indeed; an album with the ability to appeal to the more chart-minded amongst us but at the same time containing more than enough mystery and intelligence (lyrically and musically) to appeal to the more discerning listener. Lizzie wrote all of the 13 songs on Holy Road, songs that show a remarkable maturity for someone who didn’t even pick a guitar up until she was in her 20’s. With her wonderful band The Gangs Of Kosmos providing sterling support and her Natalie Merchant inflected vocals wrapping themselves hypnotically around the insanely catchy rhythms and melodies, West has created the winning formula – a modern masterpiece for the masses. If I was a marketing man for Warners I’d be straight down to the broadcasting stations with promos of the album, insisting they play it on rotation. Summer’s almost here and the timing’s perfect. Time to get focussed Warners; you’ve got a bona-fide classic in your hands – get your arses in gear and make Lizzie West a superstar.

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