Jenny Colquitt is a singer-songwriter from Widnes in NW England, and regular readers of this website might remember that last year, I reviewed her extremely good EP, Lost Animals, and there is a button below to click on to read that.
She has now released her second full-length album, Staring at the Moon, and I included a little advance mention of this review in my monthly Ruminations video series on YouTube (link at the foot of this review).
Many reviewers will seek to provide readers with comparisons, influences they hear, “if you like so and so, you will like this”, it is part of the job in many ways. From my perspective, this supremely gifted artist is one of the best practising her craft in the modern music scene. I repeat what I said in my video, that if you are a fan of the likes of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Judie Tzuke, and Christine McVie, then you really should check Colquitt out, because she genuinely deserves comparison.
There are ten tracks, with not one poor note among them. Credit must be given to her producer and contributor, David Gorst for providing us with such a rich sounding album, and I might add here that the artwork by Emily Fairchild at Aether Illustration brings the songs created by Colquitt to warm life. The website at https://www.aetherillustration.com/ is worth a visit.
I played the opening track, Bravest of the Brave, on my video, and I make no excuses for embedding it again on this review, because this wonderful piece of music is a shoo-in for consideration as the “Track of the Year” on this website’s annual awards – for new readers, I do not do dull top ten album lists, but always include a best track in awards that are something a wee bit more interesting than simple lists. Press the link at the top of this page to look. This song is about a young girl, Isla, the warmest part of whom is beating in her chest (isn’t that a beautiful line?). This song alone is worth buying the album for, and the instant I heard the “oooo”, “oooo”, “oooooooo” on Bandcamp, I had to get the CD. Full of emotion, a soaring voice, oozing love from every single note.
I did wonder as to how on earth she could possibly follow that and prepared myself for a bit of a disappointment. Thankfully, I can report that these thoughts were well and truly misplaced.
No One Loves Me Like You is a nice blend of the love two people have for each other set into the context of the mystery of life, as we laugh into space, staring at the moon. Is this a song of reconciliation, the writer learning her lesson of the love felt for her? This track has some very good guitar riffs, a delicious bassline, deep piano, and a voice full of power in its fragility. This is quite simply a life affirming piece of music.
I’m Fading is a song of heartache, of bleeding out in the bed, the words and image showing the girl in the bed falling to the ground with a parachute. It is the shortest track here, and I have embedded it below, and you will note the emotion in this vocal accompanied by such a feeling piano, the acoustic guitar keeping time.
Without You is a lament to the one who has flown, left, over the hills into that eternal place none will know until they arrive. As I write this review, I am helping a friend widowed after fifty years of marriage with the inevitable paperwork, and the striking words in this that “I went through the papers in your room, written in gold, I love you” raw, intelligent, knowing at the sheer sense of loss and deeply wanting a sign that all will be okay. Musically, the piano conveys this feeling, and there are some very gentle effects, whilst the rhythm section is persistent, carrying with it the sense of urgently wanting to turn the ship around. Really quite intense in such a quiet way.
I Won’t Let You Drive was released as a single in March, a song of love, but a journey, with the writer not wanting the partner’s pain, but a true symbiosis, a relationship of equals, as opposed to merely being a receptacle, frightened that things will stay the way they are. There is raw emotion in this song. Take a listen below.
For A Moment is the longest track here at 4:33. It puts me in mind of Joni Mitchell, this one. Colquitt has a voice with so much depth, and some real power here when she cries “I’m Alive” in a song which I think not only addresses the subject’s need for rescue, but that of the neglected in wider society. There are some impressive riffs in this, quite heavy at its core.
The theme of needing to breathe is carried on in Dear Me, a note to self, that self sailing across a vast ocean, with lies representing the dark, but with summer breaking to split the clouds and let the sun shine. The guitar work on this track is very impressive, both acoustic and slide, and the intensity of the call to see the dark is over is pleasing.
Fallin’ Angels, the demon in the forest counting his victims of depression and despair, this being a call to arms, as it were, for us all to unite and not fight, apposite in our country at the moment in an election campaign devoid of any courtesy or substance, but all rather shouty and nasty. This track, though, musically is far from that, and it is quite progressive in parts, a compelling narrative, the initial call to unite delicate, but rising in intensity as we reach the final passage, a cracking folk rock track, not dissimilar to some of the anthemic work Merry Hell, who she has supported, produce.
The penultimate track is My Design, another call, where in modern society we feel we are fighting for our very lives, praying for the sun to appear to banish the false dawns we are perpetually promised. This track has a beat which draws you in, some of it I think influenced by the type of music Barclay James Harvest produced back in the day, especially with the orchestral feel at its roots, Colquitt herself crying the words out with some force.
We close with the title track itself, and I have embedded below for you an official live video of this on her recent tour. I am afraid that owing to family commitments, I was unable to see Jenny at my favourite venue, The Acapela near Cardiff, but hopefully next time she tours. Alone on a clifftop (think of the rugged coastline at Pembrokeshire) staring at Mother Moon, a commentary on our broken world, the title, I think, a metaphor for our celebrity and nonsense filled world, but the theme of the album rebounding strongly thinking of her love, this also represented by that giant in the sky, so how we physically and mentally seek to represent people in objects and relate that to our lives. The video shows a very tight band supporting a confident lead, and the whole drama of the track translated well to the live environment.
Staring at the Moon is about as good as an album gets. It is precisely the type of album this website was set up to write about, intelligent music, which is crying out for a wide audience, quality when measured against the corporate noise we must put up with daily in our lives. Pop along to Jenny’s Bandcamp page at https://jennycolquitt.bandcamp.com/album/staring-at-the-moon or her website at https://jennycolquitt.co.uk/ A joy from start to finish.