John Smith
Album: Great Lakes
Label: BARP
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.johnsmithjohnsmith.com

Smith's simple, largely unadorned guitar accompanies his equally untreated vocals on this breathy, open and unerringly accessible album, his third. Great Lakes whispers its reports from the English countryside, a place where all human emotion is found and yet little of it is recorded as being likely to spin the Earth of its axis.

So, a fairly sober view then, of all things from a perfectly reasonable perspective, if a little unromantic. In that sense this is an album of emotional folk music, reportage from the frontline of human feeling - the kind of thing John Martyn excelled at. Lungs, a duet with Lisa Hannigan charts the breakdown of a relationship, but it doesn't sound like the end of the world, merely the end of an affair. England Rolls Away is this green and pleasant land set out before us on a warm spring day, affectionate, it pays tribute to Smith's West Country roots in a mood and delivery and recalls Martyn's treatment of the traditional Spencer the Rover.

As well as Hannigan, with whom he often performs, Smith has enlisted the likes of Joe Henry and Dennis Ellsworth as collaborators and proves more than equal to such exalted company. One to watch.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk