Review Summary: A simple, beautiful folk album that fails to surprise the listener.
A simple, beautiful folk album that fails to surprise the listener. Through a lot of cryptic and vague lyrics this album doesn’t seem to impart wisdom that his other releases have. The instrumentation stays mostly light and very folk and doesn’t stray much from songs you would hear at a campfire. Overall the music doesn't really stick with you, I only felt myself interested in one song when I wasn't listening to it.
The opening is wonderful and sets the tone for the album, Cat singing about uncertainties of life and wonderful acoustic guitars. Already by the second song the listener understands that not much is going to change between the songs.
The album only comes in at thirty-three minutes and with many of the songs being repetitive there isn't much content on the album. The unifying theme of the album seems to be about lost love and changing as a person after meeting people that mean a lot to you. Songs like “Rubylove” really don’t have anything to them at all with lyrics like “Ehla xana, ehla xana kondamou” and repeated phrases about how Ruby will be his love. There are a lot of wonderful lyrics on songs like “If I Laugh”
“If I laugh just a little bit
Maybe I can recall the way
That I used to be, before you
And sleep at night, and dream”
The most recognizable song on the album is for sure “Bitterblue” which is the most instrumentally different song aside from “Tuesday’s dead”. “Bitterblue” has a wonderful driving chorus that includes bass, drums, guitar and Cat’s voice unlike it’s heard anywhere else on the album.
“Moonshadow” is another standout on the album, an absolutely beautiful opening of a single guitar that is not matched by any other song. The song itself is about seeing positivity in tragedy, not done in a particularly revolutionary way.
The second half is definitely the better of the record, with the first part being fairly monotonous. The album closes on a familiar sounding song, which doesn’t seem to be anything Cat hasn’t done with previous songs on the album which doesn’t do much to add to the album.
