As in other professions, there are musicians who are mere charlatans profiteering from their limited talents and there are the true artists who seem to deliver everything they have direct from the heart. A grand claim but one that can easily be applied to Edinburgh's Susanna Macdonald with her album "Some Misconceptions".
Taking the most conventional song "Kiss Like Poison (The Bond Song)" first as it seems a bit of a diversion considering the rest of the album, this does what it says on the title and should get the lady a publishing deal forthwith along with a phone call from somebody called Broccoli. An elegant take on the Barry/Bricusse/Newley style and with an arrangement featuring Rob Sproule-Cran's stylishly mournful trumpet, it has hit stamped all over it.
The rest of the album is rather different in tone. Ms Macdonald's fondness for layering and looping her backing tracks is often used to good effect. Of particular note is the manic "Here Comes To The Maniacs" that portrays the frustration and fear that follows experiencing rush hour traffic madness on a journey along the motorway to Glasgow. Yet this is not a style she keeps to as she then goes all Carly Simon (albeit with different hangups) urban folk with "Buddah on the Sideboard". The element of surprise remains though. "5 Cab Holler" starts in much the same vein before twisting and turning into something altogether more grandiose and theatrical. A song for and from a diva indeed.
Maybe it is the side effect of the intensity of her artistic muse, but Ms Macdonald has the skill and passion to put a soundtrack to the darkness that exists in the soul but that trademark intensity seems reigned in on "Innocent" allowing the simple beauty of her music to bring the light that balances the melancholy. The nearest comparison I can make to illustrate the effect is actually one from classical music - Kathleen Ferrier singing Mahler. It's an impact thing and it catches you out.
It wouldn't be right to finish this review without mentioning Ms Macdonald's polished skills on the piano, well demonstrated on "Impromptu", before the album gets the big finale with the pure cabaret of "The Whole Shebang". "Some Misconceptions" is a complex album that possesses a depth that will frighten a few but if it was easy to "get" then it probably wouldn't be worth having. So can a critic also be a fan? Yes, and I'll happily put my hands up to that one.
Available from her website.