Eve Goodman reminds me of two of the greatest lost British singers of the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s – Nick Drake's word imagery and breathy sound and Sandy Denny's gorgeous voice and folk phrasing. This is simply sublime.
The subject matter could not be more dark – her fathers death by suicide and her struggles to come to grips with it – but the resulting album is soft, passionate, beautiful. In the main you hear just voice and guitar but in addition to her voice Luke Evans creates a whole otherworld of sounds that support her vocals and acoustic guitar.
There is a haunting atmosphere to her songs, melancholy and intense longing, and it translates into a mesmeric quality – once I had pressed ‘play’, I was hooked. I had to listen to the entire album without picking tracks or investigating individual songs. But listen after listen revealed more and more of her words and some beautiful playing.
Goodman is born and bred in North Wales and there is a feeling of the stark beauty of the country there. One song in her native Welsh is gorgeous, otherworldly but is still in the manner of her English language songs.
The album closes on ‘Quiet Revolution’, quietly asserting her moving on from the points of her angst and devastation at it all.
Possibly the most moving album I’ve heard in years. Highly recommended.
