Reviews
Artist: The Bailey Sisters
Album: After Silence, Music
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website:http://www.thebaileysisters.co.uk
We get a small, but regular, number of instrumental albums through the office, but I'm struggling to remember the last time we had a predominantly accapella album in. Let me rephrase that, a new predominantly accapella album. I'd not really thought about it until "After Silence, Music" from vocal trio The Bailey Sisters dropped through the door.
Karen Dyson, Aly Rainey and Shelley Rainey are not sisters, nor are any of them called Bailey and whilst they've never shared a womb they have all shared a love of choral, with both Karen and Aly singing with Manchester based choir Duoecimo.
"After Silence, Music" reflects the trios other great love, traditional and early music, with over five hundred years of history being covered on this release. The tragedy is that many of the songs could have been written at any time during those five hundred years.
One of the two Karen Dyson penned songs, "Bells Of Tallinn", written about bells that are still buried all over Estonia from when the communists took control in order to avoid them being broken or melted down. It has haunting echoes of almost all European campaigns through history and is a hugely powerful song.
The album isn't entirely accapella, a number of songs contain, simple, but effective accompaniments that give support to the evocative and creative arrangements that originate from within the band. The understanding of voice and harmony, it has to be said, is exceptional.
Three voices are far more difficult to get right than many, but there is not one point on the album where I found myself wanting to hear more parts in an arrangement, the songs have been well chosen and all deliver maximum impact, to the extent that as soon as my first listen was over, I started the second.
The Bailey Sisters have delivered an album that is both uplifting and melancholic, in roughly equal measure, mainly because it is so heartfelt, you can really pick out the emotional input in their version of "No My Love, Not I".
"After Silence, Music" reminded me that I miss traditional accapella singing, particularly when it's this good.
Neil King