Eartha

Since winning the Grammy for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album in 2003 with her album Sidebars, Eartha Moore has been busy. Ink Dry Blue is her third album – though her first in seven years. It’s impressive in the sense that she wrote all the tracks, played every instrument and of course sings on them all.

The 70’s sounding Hearts of Stone gets the album off to a groovy, heavy start, some Purplish keyboards in the background and we also have Gillan scream in the mix. That groove is maintained in What How Why When though with a more contemporary sound. One by One brings us up to date and though it initially sounds a bit left field it’s eventually a pretty conventional pop song.

The album does loose it’s way a bit after this with too many fillers, all very well performed but will pass most by being slick, easy and insubstantial. Already There in particular will have diabetics panicking.

In fact it’s only with Pursuit that the album gets back the backbone of the opening tracks. A metronomic rhythm with some interesting disembodied guitar should grab the listener back from the crossword. Unfortunately, the album never really gets back to those intriguing heights, though Betrayer tries hard.

At seventy-one minutes the album is probably too long, and this is compounded by the material's lack of variety. Also, Eartha’s faith is never far from the surface, and while that may niggle some people, what is really sad is that many of these songs could fit too easily into the vacuous sets performed by the faceless bands that turn up on the God Channel. Which is a shame as Eartha has a deep, soulful and versatile voice that is not well served or challenged by they majority of the songs on this album.