Jane Weaver's second album pulls from the folk tradition without sounding like a museum piece. The reference points are there, Karen Dalton's fragile delivery, Linda Perhacs' private intensity, but the production lifts these ten songs somewhere else. Pedal steel bends through the mix, violins drift in and out, and occasionally the whole thing tips into distorted rock that recalls the Velvet Underground at their most narcotic.
The songs move between contentment and hurt without announcing which is which. Weaver's voice stays close, never pushing for effect. When the arrangements open up they do so carefully, adding texture rather than drama. It works best when it stays spare: the quieter tracks have more presence than the ones that reach for volume.
This sits alongside other British women who took folk somewhere stranger in the early 2000s, though Weaver's from Liverpool rather than London. If you know Broadcast or the more experimental end of singer-songwriter records from that period, this will make sense to you. It is not flawless, a couple of tracks lose focus, but the best moments here are very good indeed.
