Volkswagon Music 6

 

William Prince - Stand in the Joy, album review

Quality Exudes

This is a mature and sweet album, Prince with his soft baritone soothing in the reflective lyrics of finely-crafted songs. It is a straightforward and simple as this: quality exudes. It has a clear Country intonation throughout, but the most indicative of this is the pedal-steel lament ‘Broken Heart of Mine’.

Lyrically, the songs tread familiar self-questioning on a life lived and measured by the here and now. They can do so with some poetic cleverness too, as with ‘Young’:

 

Cover band sign me up

Play some Metallica

Let’s count the times we drive by all the driveways we ain’t driven by before

Can’t shake what’s got me shook

Turn around take another look

Holdin’ on to someday and a better situation

 

Young hoping one day you’ll grow old

Older than when it began

Hard to imagine it all now that we’re free and I’m just fine

We can start over again

Nothing is out of our reach

We can be all that we dreamed when we were young

Wе were young

Shoulda had it all by now

According to my younger sеlf

What ain’t down on paper means nothin’ in the real world

When you’re young

 

Had a dream where I was giving blood

Hooked up to a record machine

Speaking in a fevered tongue

Staring at some desert trees

Forgetting everybody’s name

Is this all that seems

All that it seems

Ain’t no small victories when you’re young

 

There is a recurring harmonising vocal in many songs and this adds to the gentle delivery of the whole. It is a relaxing, reassuring musical narrative that puts a strong sense of knowing and understanding on whatever is being ruminated.

 

Get here.

 

 

Beth Malcolm - Kissed and Cried, album review

Damn Fine

This is a gorgeous folk album, Beth Malcolm having a fine, fine voice (damn fine, perhaps best in not wanting to repeat ‘gorgeous’ which it is), and at times there is a very slight Country inflection there which I also like. There’s a live track here Choose My Company which demonstrates how good she is, this accompanied by jazz ensemble Fat-Suit.

 

Winner of ‘Scots Singer of the Year’ in 2022, Beth is from Perth and thus the award is spot-on for quality and place of birth. Workers’ Song is doubly inspirational in its delivery and in its narrative at a time of workers struggling and fighting for their rights across the UK. 

 

 

Recommended, and get here: https://bethmalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/kissed-and-cried