Ange Hardy
Album: Esteesee
Label: Story
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.angehardy.com/

Some reviews are harder to write than others, particularly if you're in the fortunate position to count the creator of the album as a friend and have been named in the thank you notes of said album. Two critical values that need to be retained as a critic are objectivity and perspective. I feel that I have retained both, but feel the need to caveat this review, lest anyone feels the need to say, well he would say that wouldn't he.

"Esteesee" is not just an album you see, it's a concept album and that means that not only does it have to be full of rich songs and entertaining it has to deliver the spirit of the subject that it's written around, something that a songbook album doesn't have to.

In selecting the poet, writer, philosopher, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as the subject of the album there is an immediate affinity with a protagonist that shares Ange's love and passion for words. If Samuel Taylor Coleridge was reborn today, would he be a singer-songwriter and screenwriter as a different avenue for his obvious creative talents? Discuss.

Naturally "Esteesee", the album named, incidentally in the phonetic way Coleridge often signed himself as he disliked his own name, incorporates the two hits, "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", but like Coleridge himself, this is so much more than that.

Coleridge was a complex individual and trying to capture the man who invented the phrase 'suspension of disbelief' and spent a lot of his creative life under the influence of laudanum and opium, in just fourteen songs is no mean task. If the review sounds a bit like a history lesson thus far, maybe it is, but then again the role of a good concept album is to educate and without a doubt "Esteesee", puts a massive tick in that box. 'Ahh yes' I can hear you say, 'but does it entertain, does it make you feel?' I was coming to that.

"Esteesee" is an album that makes you feel, takes you through the thrashes you against the rocks, drags you through the mangle and delivers you at the end well pressed, sharp around the edges and with an addictive desire to have those endorphins kick against the synapses again.

Ange Hardy has had some of life's great battles and whilst not the same as those experienced by Coleridge, they have helped her get under his skin and bring something tangible to a man that we only know from books, something that takes no small effort and the thing I like about it is there are times where I feel he was a jerk and sometimes I feel he was a saviour.

You can really feel the heart and soul put into "Esteesee" because you can feel it all coming back out again. This is not an album that tries to shoehorn a life into song, this is an album that takes the essence of a life and celebrates it, the good with the bad, the young with the old.

Ange is joined in her task, by the likes of Steve Knightly, Patsy Reid, Lukas Drinkwater, Steve Pledger and Jo May, as well as spoken word exponents Tamsin Rosewell and David Milton. I should also mention Jonny Dyer, Andrew Pearce, Archie Churchill-Moss and Kate Rouse, all of whom contribute their own piece of magic and sparkle. The musicianship, singing and performance on this album, hits the marks time and time again. Each song delivering its own vignette

Coleridge is not just a man, he's one of my favourite poets and the thing is, as the final notes of "Elegy For Coleridge" fade into the hall, I can't help but get the impression of a wan, slightly hung over man in a frock coat, getting up on stage, strapping on a guitar and shouting, "ONCE AGAIN FROM THE TOP!"

Ultimately if you've read Coleridge you can't help hearing "Esteesee" and Ange Hardy's wonderful songs, partly through his ears and from where I'm sitting it's sounding exceptionally good and if you haven't yet read Coleridge, why not hear "Esteesee" first and partly see his words, through Ange Hardy's eyes. Ultimately that choice is yours, my recommendation is let "Esteesee" open the doors to your personal Xanadu, it's a well worthy pleasure dome.

Neil King