Louise Jordan
Album: Veritas
Label: Azania
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.louisejordan.co.uk

"Veritas" is Louise Jordan's third album and the third one with a Latin title, something that I actually quite like as it really gives the songs a place in a canon whilst at the same time highlighting that even when something is connected it can be separate and distinct.

"Veritas" is Latin for truth, in mythology she is actually the Goddess of Truth and the mother of virtue and in some ways, it is that Roman habit of personifying traits that really informs the album as, in the loosest sense, it explores our relationship with the truth it it's many forms.

As with previous cuts, this is an album that is populated with characters, some like "Lovey Warne" a real person with her own stories and a real ale named after her, others, such as "What Is The Matter" draws on a nursery rhyme. Even, "Where'er You Walk" that at first seems like an interlude, it's actually an aria from Handel's opera Semele, draws you into a realisation that the quest for truth is as timeless as it is universal.

For me one of the most powerful songs on the album is "Those Words" a song that covers white lies and deceit and the complications of honesty, it's a song that is built on a tower of home truths and like the Tower of Babel, you know it's all going to come crashing down.

As with previous cuts Louise also takes the duties behind the desk, acknowledging some mentoring from Megson's Stu Hanna in that role. One area where "Veritas" finds a tangent with previous albums is the balance of the instrumentation , with more of a skew towards the keyboard over the guitar, something which gives the album a more dramatic poise.

Just under half the songs on the album are penned in their entirety by Louise Jordan, with A.A. Milne contributing a couple of poems for her to score and arrange, with the rest of the songs coming from the tradition. "Veritas" is an exploration, but it doesn't feel ted to a concept, rather a damned fine with a philosophy that takes in many angles. Enjoy.

Neil King