Lizzie Nunnery & Vidar Norheim
Album: Black Hound Howling
Label: Redthread
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.lizzienunnery.co.uk/

I'm a little late on this review, for which many apologies, but it has definitely been worth the wait. Regular readers will know my admiration of wordsmiths and singer/songwriter/playwright, Lizzie Nunnery is definitely a wordsmith.

"Black Hound Howling" is the much anticipated follow up to the 2010 album "Company Of Ghosts" and unlike its predecessor, it credits Lizzie's musical cohort Vidar Norheim, who as well as being her longtime sidesman is also an award winning songwriter in his own right back in his native Norway. Not only that he's an innovative guitarist, applying some unusual techniques to the instrument, including playing it like a cello.

A look at the track listing also identifies the involvement of the Liverpool Socialist Choir on the sign out track "Poverty Knocks" and that highlights one of Lizzie's real passions, social justice. It's a theme that permeates through her work, but rarely as openly as in the last track. Lizzie's way with words often sees her weaving a political thread through her songs in a way that you're aware it's there but not in a way that detracts from the main storyline, the sign of a true crafter of words.

It's not just the words that are dramatic, if it was just dramatic words, than this would be poetry, and to an extent it is, but these are definitely songs, thoughtful, thought provoking and evocative songs.

Lizzie understands the importance of images in songs, she uses them cleverly to connect her works to songs that have gone become part of the tradition already, both the title song "Black Hound Howling" and "Cherry Blossom" take that trick and deploys it effectively, she takes those images and gives them a real twist.

Lizzie Nunnery & Vidar Norhein have delivered an album that not only delivers on first hearing, it continues to deliver on subsequent listenings. "Black Hound Howling" is one of those albums with lots of nooks and crannies that deliver little surprises as you explore the songs in different moods. Definitely one I'm happy to recommend.

Neil King