Worry Dolls
Album: Burden
Label: Hidden Den
Tracks: 4
Website: http://www.worrydollsmusic.com

Worry Dolls, if you've not encountered them before, are London based Zoe Nicol & Rosie Jones & they came together through having the same fiery red hair colour. The world was introduced to their unique brand of indie-Folk on the duo's eponymous 2013 EP. The follow up has been almost two years in the making & sees the girls heading in a more bluegrass infused direction.

Burden consists of four original songs, each dealing with a different aspect of relationships. Long Gone is possibly the strongest track on the EP & is a classic break up song, the musical arrangement coupled with the lyrics giving it a distinct air of defiance. Be So Cruel is an altogether more wistful song, dealing with friendships that disintegrate over time as the protagonists lives lead them on divergent paths. This time the tune starts out at a tempo that reflects the songs opening lyric but soon takes on an altogether more driven & upbeat tempo. The third track, Shaking In Our Boots, looks at confidence & our perceived need to hide a lack of it from the world behind whatever mask we can find. The last track, Monkey On My Back is the duo's take on trust & how an inability to trust others can prevent new friendships & relationships forming as well as creating a barrier between existing ones.

Given the subject matter, perhaps you would expect Burden to quite a downbeat affair, but the opposite is true. The upbeat, up tempo tunes are at odds with the message contained in some of the lyrics but, to me, that adds to the charm of this EP. Burden is a release that repays repeated listening & each listen will reveal new layers in the songs. All in all, a good introduction to Worry Dolls and I await the debut full length CD with interest

David Chamberlain