The press release for this album says that Angie McLaughlin is Scottish and that’s more than enough reason to generate some words on her new album “The Boy is Gone” especially when my ears would have thought that, given the polish of both her performance and her song writing that she was, in fact, born in the good old US of A.
“This Boy Is Gone” rolls like a train on the Americana track but this train isn’t stopping at the usual dustbowl stations to take onboard some inspiration. Angie McLaughlin instead takes onboard passengers at the stations of folk American style, old timey jazz, country and the archetypal singer songwriter and heads off on her own, delightfully commercial and suitably sentimental, journey that terminates at your ears. The production, courtesy of Martin Stephenson, never interferes with the presentation of these song with just enough fancy flourishes to accent the meaning without ever attempting to disguise, or indeed artificially inflate, Angie McLaughlin’s talent.
This approach makes this album one that will appeal to many or, at the very least, to those that appreciate the many and myriad benefits that song writing maturity can bring. The boy might well be gone but he clearly hasn’t left Angie McLaughlin’s heart.