Looking for a friend in a friend shop. Funny how lyrics to songs long forgotten just pop into your mind. Even funnier when said lyrics have no actual connection to the music that you might be listening to at the time yet so it was with “Away From The City” by Melanie Crew & Ross Palmer.
It is true, however, that listening to these six songs is a bit like dropping back in time. Nothing is forced, nothing is rushed as if Melanie Crew & Ross Palmer are the product of a time when the pace of life was altogether more leisurely. However, in contradiction to the optimistic outlook of, say, the folk singers of those halcyon days of yesteryear, these two performers live in a world with plenty of cloud and a forecast of plenty more to come in the way of grey. Yet, there are also hints of redemption as the replacement for lost hope with the understated Christianity providing a stable platform for their contemplations on the loneliness and isolation inherent to our always connected times.
If you are looking for a song that will kick you where it hurts or cause you to turn to shoplifting as a means to support your drug habit, then you won’t find it here. These five songs have tranquillity and peaceful resignation infused into them and, despite the resolutely downbeat lyrics, there is nonetheless something endearing about Melanie Crew & Ross Palmer.
Available from Bandcamp.