The subtitle for this album is “Stories of friendship, love and loneliness – lost and found”. While the song titles may occasionally come across a bit formulaic, there is nothing routine about the words and music on offer here‘Willing’ really kicks off with the electric guitar opening of ‘You’re My Number One’. The lilting ‘Josette’ is carried on a delicate pedal steel line that reflects the warmth of the words perfectly. On ‘Wildfire’ she is backed by the sort of close harmonies that Crosby, Stills and Nash used to be the masters of. her voice has a warmth and distinctiveness that carries her songs brilliantly. A lesser singer would know her strengths and stick to them. Lady Nade isn’t afraid to change how she uses her sound to fit the song. ‘One Sided’ is more up-tempo than much of the album. The more spoken delivery expresses the frustration of the words. “I realise in the darkness; you leave me alone. I’m waiting for you to make the first move”. My favourite song on the album at the moment. In a fairer universe this is a massive hit.
The Tracey Chapman style ‘Call Yourself a Friend’ follows and is another song that will have you nodding along. We’ve all been in these situations and now we have someone who can express the frustrations of life for us.” He’s using you to get to me”. ‘Rock Bottom’ is another up-tempo song that feels like it will be a live highlight, complete with a rather good electric guitar solo.
My album reviews for Americana UK have been embarrassingly positive this year. Lockdown seems to have brought the best out of many artists. She says of the recording process “I’ve never written a song, engineered or co-produced an album during a pandemic before. Working in isolation, equipped with home studio setups, my band and I was (sic) able to develop a recording process working on every aspect from songs, lyrics and structure collaboratively, from hundreds of miles apart.” The time spent on refining these songs has been well worth it meaning she can change moods from the reflective ‘Peace and Calm’ to ‘Many Ways to Sink This Ship’, which has the 70s pop feel that pops up throughout the album, without it feeling forced. Another shift to the organ lead ‘Ain’t One Thing’ closes the album. “A powerful declaration of love and self-love, a promise never to try and change a person or oneself, a tool for positive body image and mental health and well”. This will be on my end of year song list; in fact, I’m writing it down now.
The album is out today (18th June) Buy it on Bandcamp, you know it makes sense. I’m getting to see her play these gorgeous songs live on Saturday at her album launch in the wonderful acoustics of St George’s Hall in Bristol. A review of that will pop up on Americana UK shortly after and I’ll link to it from here as well.
