Tess Of The Circle
Album: Thorns
Label: Vintage Voice
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.facebook.com/TessOfTheCircle

This new album by Tess of the Circle can be summed up in just one word: Exciting. That is the main emotion that comes across through listening to the album and it stays with you from the very start until the very end.

Whether this is fast pure excitement or more relaxed anticipation tends to vary a little more through the album. Each track can be considered stand alone with each story being written on its own musical paper but still with a familiarity that makes you comfortably go "Sounds like Tess".

In particular I enjoyed the opening track of 'Better Days' which gives us a rock style thump to really get the beat going. We get a similar style later on in 'History' but that's not to say that the album is purely for foot tapping.

We do get much softer and gentle almost poetry like songs such as 'Eyes of a Clown'. I think this album is exciting because it is not clear at any point what the next track is going to be like, so even as your listening to a song you always have itching in the back of your mind "What's going to be next?".

The choice of instruments for the album is a favourite for me, a good balance of varied strings and percussion without trying too hard to fit into rigid expectations.

Over all a fantastic album with excellent and exciting variety

Paul Rawcliffe