Playlouder - Music is the Network

This record (and even if it’s been beamed straight into your brain from iTunes, it’s still most certainly a ‘record’) has no right to be as satisfying as it is. The thirteen songs are the best of 21 recorded live over six days by two people who barely knew each other, and it’s to their credit that it sounds like the product of a lot more forethought.

Whilst the album as a whole is a grower rather than a shower, two songs have a winning immediacy. Come With Me combines crisp, lilting guitars with frisky lyrics and an appealing tune. Grey Goes is a different beast to anything else on here, it’s clever colour-themed concept and rolling melody building to a squall of choppy violin.

Williams’ vocals are fresh and attractive throughout, but it’s her lyrics that draw you the more you listen. You’re never far from a line like  “I swallowed purple when you left me” that makes you sit up and listen, even when some of the songs merge into one another. It’s a testament to the spirit of the record that a concerted bout of swearing on Armchair doesn’t jar with the pastoral surroundings.

If Williams and MacColl had spent any longer on this record, they’d probably have ruined it.