I like a good trend and I like it even better when what is trendy actually turns out to be at odds with the trendsetters. Girls with guitars are the in thing at the moment with legions of grrrl groups grunging their way through the bomb blast basement venues of the world. Then along comes Anna Calvi.
She’s mean and moody – if a woman can be mean and moody …(ha!) – yet elegant and cool while she is at it. And slick. Her self titled album just flies by. I’d barely managed to chew open the bag of peanuts that would soon constitute my supper before side one had kissed me on the forehead and said goodbye with the Spectoresque drum patterns of “First Ever Kiss” lingering on instant replay inside the vast empty spaces of my brain.
Ms Calvi spins up side two with the neo folk stylings of “The Devil” with her digital dexterity clearly evident on the fretboard whist she emotes like a less angry PJ Harvey. There is a bit of a stumble with the overtly commercial “Blackout” coming across like a Blondie B side from back in the days before the telltale signs of greater things reappear more in “I’ll Be Your Man”.
Given the plaudits going her way, Ms Calvi could have coasted her way through this album. What she does isn’t greatly different from what has gone before but that isn’t really the point for while she hides her voice behind her guitar for much of the time – to quite intoxicating effect on “Love Won’t Be Leaving” – she clearly knows where the music will take her.
The pressing quality of this 180 gram version wouldn’t win any prizes and, according to the sleeve, the vinyl was mastered by Chris Potter at Electric Mastering.