Then there’s the piano. You don’t hear pianos – at least not real ones – often in popular music these days but Angela Musk has a piano and she knows how to use it to enhance a song that seems to have come straight from her heart. Even better than that, she does this not once but four times to duly direct her EP “Letters” straight towards the ears of those who still appreciate the finer things in life.
Then there’s the songs themselves. Undoubtedly seasoned with that particular mix of melodrama and maturity that turns musicals into stage hits in the West End theatres of London, they nonetheless find ways to wrap themselves around you as you listen to them just like that fluffy blanket of many colours that once kept you warm on winter nights did and, even when shifting the tempo - as she does with “To Be Free” – up a gear or two, she remains elegantly eloquent.
Her forte, however, remains the ballad and, with the inspiration of a true romantic, she makes all that she does seem both unashamedly sentimental and simultaneously personal whilst always remembering that it all has to be squeezed into those few short minutes of song. That is perhaps the old way of doing things, yet it is also the way to do it right. Angela Musk has certainly done it right and I hope that she continues to do so.
Best song? “Something’s Changed”.
The Verdict? An eloquent and unashamedly sentimental set of songs.