Venus Climbing Ltd (label)
21 November 2018 (released)
08 December 2018
After writing for the great and the good of pop Fiona Bevan returns to the studio for her own latest EP, Wild Angels Sweet Demons.
Bevan has previously written for the likes of One Direction, the Backstreet Boys, and Rita Ora. After glimpsing that pop CV, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the singer’s newest work would be a testament to top 40 radio. Big electronic beats, auto tune, and big Stadium hooks.
It’s anything but that.
instead, it’s a soft-spoken reflection on, love, life, and personal adversity. The soft piano opener ‘Wild Angels’ faces up to the fact that even the strongest of us face tough times. Bevan’s soft tones bring the listener the travails of usually infallible beings to make the point.
Promotional notes for the record revealed that the track was written after “Fiona was deliriously ill.” The notes add that “It’s a song about how everybody, even the ‘fierce and fearsome angels’, get ill sometimes, whether that’s physically or mentally…”
Even as the singer-songwriter looks to get a little steamier, on’ Sweet Demons’ the melody makes it all seem tender, rather than carnal and raw. While it’s clear the singer is experiencing orgasmic delight, in a song said to be about “torment and delight of sexual obsession… “, It’s surprisingly gentle
The project’s penultimate song, ‘The Bad Book’ is the work’s best offering. With its simple and encouraging message to fill the book of our lives with, adventures, dreams mistakes and all, it’s a feelgood number.
Using acoustic guitar is the main focal point the track has a nice folk flavour to it. The concoction is rounded off well with a breezy piano tambourine interlude, separating, life from death, and the transition from taking the journey to looking back at a race well run.
After that excellent few minutes, the psychedelicly spiritual ‘Goddess’ can’t muster the same level of engagement. Switching the two songs around would’ve improved the EP’s climax.
