Angie Palmer
Album: Old Sticks To Scare A Bird
Label: Akrasia
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.angiepalmer.com/

Reviewing each of Angie's previous albums in turn, I've not been able to avoid tagging this exceptional Lancashire-raised (now France-based) artist as a best-kept secret; and, despite persistent championing by Bob Harris and in the pages of many well-respected music publications, that status inexplicably remains even now, several years down the line. And yet Angie, in collaboration with her lyricist Paul Mason, has delivered some of the most lasting of singer-songwriter albums of the past decade, and her career now gains another memorable instalment with the release of Old Sticks To Scare A Bird - album number six - which once again sports an eye-catching and highly colourful package design (that's also Paul's work, incidentally).

Old Sticks… has been deliberately conceived as a "two-sider" in the tradition of the vinyl LP, with Side One a series of songs with more electric, comparatively rocked-up arrangements and Side Two containing the more delicate (and delicately-scored) numbers. Although there's not really a weak track as such, the "second side" arguably brings the stronger material. It's a shame that the disc opener Ballad Of Jack Everyman is subjected to what sounds a premature fade; but, that quibble aside, the predominantly uptempo Side One provides plenty of gutsy electric music with a strong acoustic base, formats taking in the classy 12-bar western saga Poor Johnny (neat solo on what sounds like electric sitar), the gritty-but-fun blues-rocker Dirty Little Secret, the slinky southern-roots tale Raising Hurricanes (tasty dobro work), the chiming, tender-but-tough Chrissie Hynde stride of Little By Little (nice mando solo) and the edgy shuffle of Time For Thunder (killer guitar solo from Billy Buckley).

Richard Curran's spirited, sinuous violin work provides a link from the latter song into Side Two (after you hear the actual side-turnover being made!). Here, string textures feature more prominently, culminating in the glorious fulsomely-orchestrated sound of the eight-minute finale Fresco. In between, Song For Drowning Sailors dwells in the realm of traditional folk ballad as might be interpreted by a contemporary troubadour: Postcard From Paris is a skipping mando-jig-time invocation of that city; William Of The Desert depicts a strange vision with a slightly undersold air that's rather reminiscent of Sandy Denny; Haunted By A Stranger is a masterly linked two-part opus that presents a pair of failed lovers' contrasted perspectives on their experience, while the aforementioned Fresco conjures a fragile, dreamily beautiful, exotic soundscape that can't fail to melt your eardrums time and again.

The adopted "two-sides-of-vinyl format" idea may not be the best method of introducing Angie's music to a new listener, but on the other hand taken as a whole Old Sticks… still manages to embrace all the trademarks of Angie's stylish, effortlessly genre-crossing "English Americana", and there's plenty of her fine songwriting showcased within. Angie herself is on splendid form, and her band (the abovementioned Messrs. Curran and Buckley with bassist Ollie Collins and drummer Tim Franks) do a fantastic job and are brilliantly cleanly engineered by Alan Gregson. The booklet's artsome attractiveness is only mildly spoilt by the unfortunate blending-into-the-background of some of the texts, making them not all that easy to read in places. Finally tho', the only thing I don't quite get is the specific relevance of the album's title (taken from a line in W.B. Yeats' poem Among School Children), at least in the context of the album's lyrics and themes.

David Kidman