Denise Black's Loose Screw
Album: Kiss The Joy
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.deniseblack.co.uk/loosescrew.html

It's always easy to be cynical about albums from singers that have become best known for something other than their singing. It's even easier to be cynical when the biog takes the well worn path of explaining that singer y was a singer well before they became successful at x. You end up thinking, 'how come I never heard of you then? Why did you pass it up?' It's never quite a fair argument, there's lots of things that I do well that I can't make a living from and so life choices gave me other career aspirations.

Yes Denise Black is better known for her appearances in Corrie and Queer As Folk, but that's not mutually exclusive with being a good singer, in fact she been on the road as a singer before. Arguably her acting has helped inform the social and emotional observation that runs through "Kiss The Joy". There was only one point where I felt the occasional tongue in cheek drifted into cheese. Unfortunately that was on the opening track, "Never Marry A Musician", which I'm happy to write off as trying just that little too hard to laugh off the actress singer thing.

In her backing band, Loose Screw, Denise has found serious musicianship, giving the sound of the album some real gravitas, not something that's always achieved when dealing with the lighter end of the folk pop sound. It also means that Denise has to be on the mark vocally, not only on her solo slots, but also with the harmonies as the golden rule tends to be the better the background the harder it is to hide. It's more than fair to say, she not only stands out, she gets the right focus.

"Kiss The Joy" is an album that managed to cut through my cynicism and probably had to jump through more hoops than a lot of albums I listen to. Denise Black's Loose Screw have delivered an album that may not cut too deep, but which does entertain and that's what it's all about.

Neil King