country | Music Boats

Katy J Pearson live at Leeds Irish Centre review – illness-battling songstress lifts the spirits
13
Dec

Battling on despite illness, the singer-songwriter’s voice still had just enough oomph to do her finest soft rock numbers justice, and her effortless stage presence brought joy to this rainy Wednesday night in Leeds.

The alarm bells were ringing as early as song one. Bristol singer-songwriter Katy J Pearson opened this evening’s concert in the endearingly ragged confines of Leeds Irish Centre – which looks like it hasn’t changed a bit since it opened in 1970 – with her wistful recent single Those Goodbyes, a treasure trove of gorgeous, meandering melodies and pained reflections on loss. But under the venue’s tinsel-strewn ceiling, something seemed off. Her vocals on the chorus quivered, and she stepped away from the mic in the instrumental sections as if hoping to escape the obligation of having to sing. It didn’t look like she wanted to be there.

She cleared things up immediately after the end of the song. “I’ve picked up a sinus infection, so sorry if I sound a bit shit tonight,” she explained, before joking with guitarist Benjamin Spike Saunders about handing over the cold to him. Pearson apologised to the front row before Saunders chipped in with “The cold is free merch!” It’s indicative of a night that was hampered by Pearson’s illness but uplifting nonetheless, in no small part thanks to Pearson and Saunders’ gift for convivial inter-song patter.

Pearson’s beleaguered vocals are a particular shame because, as an artist, her voice is her greatest weapon. It is a remarkable thing, piercing yet mellifluous, with a delicate sheen that only gets more beautiful the higher into her range she ventures. It’s been likened to a cross between Kate Bush and Dolly Parton, but her music also evokes the trending country star CMAT, albeit with a slightly more sober presentation.

Vocals aside, Pearson also has a gift for beautiful, deceptively simple soft rock ballads, showcased best in her indie classic debut LP Return. Her third album, this year’s Someday, Now, was arguably her first creative misfire. Billed as the first album in which she’s truly taken the helm of the songwriting process, denying her label’s calls for a straightforward pop hit, Someday, Now surprisingly lacked sonic boldness, with a glut of pastel-hued, woozy tracks and a chronic lack of hooks. The fresh material understandably took precedence in Leeds, but tracks like the lethargic It’s Mine Now or the vaporous Constant had a tendency to set the mind wandering.

Luckily, there were plenty of songs from Pearson’s first two albums to keep the crowd moving. The expansive opening of Talk Over Town felt like throwing open the window after the stuffy, staid songs that preceded it, and Pearson’s sole hit Beautiful Soul came with an appealing undercurrent of menace, even though the edits to the chorus melody – apparently a measure to protect Pearson’s voice – detracted from the beauty.

Pearson’s backing band gave an impeccably professional performance, and Saunders’ tasteful guitar solo on It’s Mine Now might have rescued the track had it not been mixed so frustratingly quiet. There were plenty of interesting basslines for Tom Damage to wrap his fingers around, not least in Save Me, noodling his way into a delightful breakdown and finale. Drummer Robbie Kessell, meanwhile, was best described by Pearson herself as “a safe pair of hands,” which is to say Katy J Pearson songs are not known for their challenging drum parts.

In fairness, Pearson’s voice did steadily improve (“adrenaline is a wonderful thing,” she explained), and she was almost at full power for the Fleetwood Mac swagger of Long Range Driver, the new album’s most arresting track. It was a relief, too, that she was more than capable of tackling Return‘s title track alone on stage whilst playing acoustic guitar. An understated ballad about the joys (and sorrows) of personal growth, Return is Pearson’s songwriting magnum opus. In an Irish Centre stunned into silence, Pearson’s elegant melodies proved that, illness or not, she is an extraordinary talent.

It was a testament to Pearson’s Adele-like powers of putting the audience at ease that she could transition from the quiet heartbreak of Return to light-hearted chat with audience hecklers, asking the lighting engineer to turn down the stage lights that were blinding a patch of the crowd. “I hope this gig was acceptable,” she said at the gig’s close, before launching into a story about the last time she played in Leeds and the subsequent “paralytic” night out. Tonight was far from Pearson’s best outing, but it will take more than a sinus infection to dampen this beautiful soul.

Maggie Rogers: Don’t Forget Me review – assured third album brims with singalong choruses
24
Apr

The ballads are few and far between on Maggie Rogers’ brilliantly written third record, which delivers one singalong belter after another. Don’t Forget Me doesn’t reinvent the singer-songwriter wheel, but what a fabulous wheel this particular album is.

The origin story of Maryland singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers’ career is the stuff of pop legend these days. Rogers was 22 when she took a music production masterclass at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, which involved the no doubt intimidating task of playing an original song to one of the most famous producers in the world, Pharrell Williams. The song, Alaska, floored Williams, who’s first response was “I have zero, zero notes for that.” The resulting clip went viral (a remarkable watch still available on YouTube), and the rest is history.

History, because Williams really had discovered a US megastar in that small New York recording studio. Just four years later, Rogers would be at the Grammys. This year, that shy music student has a 30-date US stadium tour in her diary, followed by a tour of Europe in support of a little-known British band by the name of Coldplay. Whilst Alaska remains one of her biggest hits, Rogers’ music these days sounds much removed from the crowd pleasing yet safe pop confections of her 2019 debut, Heard It In a Past Life. Don’t Forget Me feels like the completion of the gradual artistic progression that Rogers launched on that fateful day back in 2016, developing from cautious experimentalism to self-assured pop and country hits. That’s not to say Don’t Forget Me tries anything especially distinctive or unusual, but the bulletproof vocal performances and a string of anthemic choruses don’t put a foot wrong.

Spacey, mature opener It Was Coming All Along is an effective tone-setter, but it’s the moody follow up where the instant classics begin: Drunk is a thrilling ride with bluesy rock guitars and a relentless chorus that recalls Fleetwood Mac at their most dynamic. Best of all is the extraordinary vocal performance, which rattles along with so much pent-up rage there are moments when Rogers’ sounds on the verge of losing control completely. And yet, like a cowboy clinging onto to a raging bull’s leash, she just about lands every adventurous adlib, and the result is one of the most compelling pop-rock recordings of the year so far.

Drunk is just the beginning of Don’t Forget Me’s delights. Deeply lovely So Sick of Dreaming is graced with sparkling layered guitars and a stunningly harmonised chorus that paints Rogers’ lovesickness with a beautiful elongated sigh of a melody. The spoken recount of a failed first date during the bridge may strike some as corny, but the payoff is perfectly executed final chorus that epitomises Rogers’ general fatigue whilst hinting at an underlying hope. The Kill maintains that appealing concoction of pain with a dash of optimism, the latter provided by an winning mellotron hook and galloping groove. It’s a straightforward and arguably unambitious track – a smattering of horns could have been a more daring creative decision to take The Kill even further from bland country music charts fodder – but it’s hard to knock the sheer quality of Rogers’ songcraft.

There are only two ballads in the ten tracks – I Still Do and All the Same – both of which are competently written and necessary moments of quiet reflection, but it’s the stadium-ready up-tempo numbers that will have fans returning to Don’t Forget Me over and over again. Earwormy On & On & On, for instance, pairs a wobbling synth bass with snappy funk drums, a hark back to noughties which might have outdated had Rogers’ hooks not been so punchy. Most of Don’t Forget Me’s choruses seem tailormade for road trip singalongs, particularly the anthemic Never Going Home, as well as the poignant lead single and title track, which closes the album with a pained demand to be remembered. If she’s in any way trying to send a message to listeners at the end of her album, Rogers need not worry – no listener is forgetting this excellent record in a hurry.

Jade Bird: Burn the Hard Drive EP review – restrained breakup songs lack punch
12
Apr

Jade Bird’s knack for an anthemic chorus and soaring vocals go largely unused on this mixed EP, which opts for introspective healing over the roof-raising Americana of Bird’s first two albums.

Jade Bird was born in Croydon, but she has an American soul. Her folky songs and penetrating vocals have long had the biggest popularity in the country music-obsessed southern states of the US, and her career was forged on the awesome country rock choruses of her self-titled debut, a record which included, amongst other barnstormers, Love Has All Been Done Before, a song which saw Bird rightly indulge in two bridges and four choruses – each more explosive than the last. A move to Austin, Texas in 2021 was the inevitable next step, along with sophomore record Different Kinds of Light, which put a loved-up sheen on Bird’s earthy Americana and offered more signs of songwriting maturity and nuance, not least in the glorious, sun-kissed melodies of Now is the Time, one of the very best songs of that year.

The years since has seen another significant change in Bird’s circumstances with the end of the long-term relationship behind many of Different Kinds of Light’s sweetest moments. The result is a long-teased EP which sees Bird mellower, more pensive and less inclined to throw in a straightforwardly anthemic chorus just for the hell of it. The unlikely production credit of Guernsey electronic music artist Mura Masa signifies the shift away from gunslinging country bangers, although (thankfully) his influence is most felt on the EP’s tasteful, muted bass riffs, rather than any drum machines and synths.

The trouble with Burn the Hard Drive is that heartbreak has not stoked the fire of Bird’s already fiery compositions, but rather extinguished it. The opening title track is pleasant and competently produced but sounds colourless compared to the unadorned passion of Bird’s early songs. There’s an interesting bass line and thoughtful one-note chorus, but for a voice of Bird’s calibre it’s like taking a Ferrari to work. C.O.M.P.L.E.X possesses the EP’s best earworm, but Bird’s admonishments of her ex’s “God complex” sound out of place amongst gentle guitars and weeping violins. There’s more intelligent composition and another alluring bass line in You’ve Fallen in Love Again, but it’s all washed in a spaced-out reverb that blunts the sharper edges in Bird’s melodies and vocals and renders the song as forgettable as a dream.

C’est La Vie is the first glimpse of Bird’s rasping vocals in their full glory and features a textbook Bird chorus that demands to be sung at full volume whilst driving towards the sunset on a long road trip. Again, Bird stops short of the full country rock treatment of wailing guitars and pounding drums, but a stripped-back, acoustic guitar driven rendition offers a round-the-campfire authenticity that spotlights Bird’s winning chorus. The song sets up Breaking the Grey, an optimistic finish with a somewhat obvious gospel-tinged piano progression. “You can’t wish the feelings away,” Bird admits, in a small but pleasing narrative arc after the desperation she felt to erase the past in the opening track. “I finally feel like I’m breaking the grey,” she assures us in the end. It seems Burn the Hard Drive has been a necessary, healing songwriting exercise for Bird – let’s hope for album three she’s ready to return to the full-blooded rock and roll she delivers best.