I have a suspicion that the name of Felicity Buirski is already known to me although I cannot quite place her anywhere in the context of my rambling record collection. Maybe one of her previous CDs made its way into the root cause of my poverty in the past but, in the here and now, it is her album “Committed To The Fire” that will be the subject of these words.
On the evidence presented by Ms. Buirski on this album, the singer songwriter of the old school is alive and well with her notably polite and almost formal approach ticking all the boxes for what is expected of the practitioners of such things. Her voice has a notable melancholy – perhaps borne of maturity - that makes her songs seem somewhat wistful and that suggests to me that there might be a torch singer of the old school just waiting to surface beneath her music. Oddly, there are also enough musical cues to suggest that the honesty, and bleak reality, of real country music has provided more than a little of her lyrical motivation.
The album, therefore, is an easy one to listen to. It is, however, an album that is a distinctly personal one and you might need to be in a similar frame of mind to derive the greatest benefit from these thirteen songs.
Best song? “Let It Be For Love” for using the word “ubiquitous”. I like literacy.
The verdict? A singer songwriter with her own style.