Up to this point twisted Dublin song-bird Cathy Davey has probably seemed most notable for featuring alongside Alfie, Jimi Doves and the extended Garvey clan on the vocal credits for Elbow’s community-minded career highlight ‘Grace Under Pressure’. We shan’t be taking that as a starting point though, no, for we cannot be sure that she does indeed “still believe in love”, the manipulative sweet-voiced fraud. It’s convenient then that from this point forward there shall be plethoric positive points of reference for her name alone. We are however fairly convinced she’s acquainted with the addendum “so fuck you”. This is a bitter sounding album, creeping and suspicious. It’s not constrained by those emotions, but they’re there as an undercurrent for sure, they define it. She’s obsessed by love, it runs as a theme through most of the tracks on the record, but like with Guy Garvey it’s a concept she clashes and toils with.
In lesser songwriter’s arms love can sound like a cliché, no matter from which angle it’s studied. Cathy Davey though, it seems, learnt to juggle before she could walk, her creative lexicon is natural and unrepressed. Her unusual voice snakes around the eccentricity of Kate Bush, the coarseness of Cerys Matthews and the suspended iciness of Beth Gibbons, and has the kind of lifeblood that doesn’t surprise you when you hear it sing “what’s the point in climbing, if swinging gets you by… it’s all about territory” (‘Swing It’) or “we should save things, but I don’t, I break things” (‘Save Button’). It’s classy, but it’s not free of vulnerability.
Her general sound is uncluttered and primal, recalling Nina Simone’s pure rhythm driven work, especially and particularly on the tribal beat-heavy ‘Old Man Rain’ placed at the heart of the album. The rest may retain the spirit as a firm backbone, but there is some divine eclecticism and equal beauty on offer elsewhere. From ‘Clean & Neat’s repetitive indie strumming, recalling fellow countrygal Gemma Hayes, through ‘Sugar’s Mazzy Star dreaminess, the smoky bar blues seduction of ‘Go Make It’, the Beatlesy melody on ‘Cold Man’s Nightmare’ colliding into a Drugstore-sort-of-anthem, and the slinky kazoo featuring stomp ‘Trade Secret’, nothing repeats itself and everything announces its arrival by drawing you in a bit deeper. “I’m clean, I’m neat, I’m ready to eat, like a clean white sheet hanging out to dry” sings she. There’s no need to believe her, but go on, give in anyway.