Twelve new songs from Eleanor here, with an instrumental and a couple of covers thrown in for good measure. Almost entirely self-performed and produced, she's multi-tracked herself on various instruments to come up with a sound that is characteristically warm and easy on the ear. Liam Bradley's percussion gives some beef to about half the tracks; mostly it's a familiar sound from the years with Brian Connor. An experiment on "Suffer So Well" where she goes all down-homey with mandolins and fiddles works really well for my money; her voice really suits the arrangement.
Otherwise, I have to say, she's not really moving on, and that's a bit of a disappointment; she's still writing songs about wretched men, men who are unavailable, or take what they want and leave, or refuse to say "I love you" - men who are never, ever "the one". Surely in all this time she's been writing songs she must have come across the odd decent bloke? Oh well, she's still got a way with a song and the hooks keep coming, insiduous jolly things that you're humming before you realise you've learnt them. One of the best is in "(When You) Smile", a love song without an unhappy ending, but then I believe it's a love song to her child. "Ach, men. I know men" (Ivor Cutler)
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This time round, Eleanor's wearing her heart on her sleeve about environmental issues, and covers Marvin Gaye's Mercy Mercy Me to highlight her concern; the lyric sheet is dotted with post-it's designed to wake us up about the problem, though this doesn't quite square with the concern expressed in "Little Look" that "theories end up in our way". Nobody would have noticed the problems of global warming if it hadn't been for the scientists taking small pieces of information to make the big picture visible to all.
Still, her primary concerns are at the personal level and she continues to bring us fine songs from that particular battlefront.
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