Four to One Records (label)
02 July 2012 (released)
15 July 2012
Poole’s Moya has been singing and performing from an early age but it’s only in the last year or so that she’s decided to knuckle down and concentrate on her song writing. The results are an EP, which achieved some regional and internet success, and this debut album.
The bumf makes much of the fact that it’s an 'eclectic' and 'diverse' album. That could’ve meant a rag tag of an album firing off in all directions. And it actually does at times but sensible track placement and selection ensures that it flows well and doesn’t jar.
Opening with the title track, it’s sparse, slightly Edgey, guitar and unsettling arrangement doesn’t set the tone for the album, as Making Me Fall is quite different with a more conventional, funkier groove. Technicolour’s is a three and half-minute multi-layered pocket epic, while Walk Away is the big ballad floating on little more than piano and strings. The single Telling Tales with its insistent rhythm burrows its way into your head. The soul fest that is Lust is up next which leads to the vaguely bondish My Alibi.
Waiting So Long has a laidback, drifty 70’s groove to it, which segues nicely into the soulful of Lightning. The piano led One Breath is the other ballad on the album and is quite lovely. Morning Rain has a slight Latin ambience and sounds a bit busy, while closer, These Roads, is an acoustic led wide open landscapes and highways song.
As mentioned there’s a variety of styles here but what keeps it from being a confused mess is a spare production by David-Blair Oliphant and of course Moya’s voice. At times, vulnerable as on the title track, seductive on My Alibi, playful on Waiting So Long, it’s never less than captivating. It is high in the mix, maybe to the detriment of some of the songs. As for the diversity of the material? Yes, ok, fine, but we aren’t talking about quantum leaps from jazz to death metal; the genres in question are pretty much cut from the same cloth, nevertheless its not that easy to pull off convincingly, which Moya does.
Simply said this is a very good debut album from a confident singer/songwriter, and already set herself a very high level.
