This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to… The Anchoress July 8, 2017
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
I was intrigued to read about The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davis aka Catherine A.D.) being feted by Prog magazine last year. As Catherine A.D. she was highly regarded, but as The Anchoress she appears to have stepped up a gear. But the prog thing? Possibly it’s her image, perhaps it’s the music itself, perhaps it is also guilt by association. Her album Confessions of a Romance Novelist was produced and some of the songs co-written by Paul Draper, late of Mansun, themselves no slouches in regard to neo-prog (albeit amongst many other aspects).
Some of the songs touch on Nick Cave like stylings, but are not overwhelmed by them (album opener Long Year is a perfect example, having a bluesy undertow). Others… though… is that ELO wafting through the studio on the jaunty piano on What Goes Around? Could be. You and Only You races by. One for Sorrow is brilliantly catchy and poppy. Popular likewise. There’s a disco beat behind Chip on Your Shoulder. There’s snippets of dialogue culled from films (or so it seems). And so on.
Drapers direct involvement is muted, some backing vocals here and there – which, fan of his though I am, is no problem. CAD’s musical approach is so strong it needs nothing more. There’s a reflective quality to the album – What Doesn’t Kill You is a… words I never thought I’d ever write… fine sweeping ballad. And while cynical – even angry, P.S. Fuck You is exhibit A (entertainingly it’s entitled P.S. Fuck You Explicit on my iPod) – it’s never hopeless. These days that’s quite some achievement. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste but I like it.
Doesn’t Kill You
One For Sorrow
What Goes Around
You and Only You (feat Paul Draper)
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