“One of the greatest British Songwriters” Bob Harris

HMV Choice July 2006
Fine English Americana from a substantial storytelling talent. It’s quite a testament to the mature songcraft of Angie Palmer that 30 seconds into Fool’s Gold, the first of these tales of light and darkness, she has you engrossed in her characters like an expert novelist. The track has an irresistible snap to it, perfectly blending acoustic and electric ingredients around a story of Dylanesque proportions in which you simply have to find out what happens next.

We don’t have a British equivalent of the word Americana, but this already seasoned singer-songwriter from Manchester exudes a convincing fluency in the style that’s rare among home grown performers. This is the fourth album by a woman who was busking around Europe at 18 and whose road miles have invested her measured, unhurried songs with depth and authenticity, further fuelled by literary inspirations from the likes of Steinbeck and Poe. The scent of folk, blues and country influences are always in the air, but the fragrance is peculiarly Palmer’s.
Paul Sexton

Acoustic Magazine
With her throaty voice sounding like Beth Orton’s tougher big sister, Angie Palmer’s second album has lots of impact. It’s hard to square the very American sound with a girl from Preston, but she is nevertheless utterly convincing. Steve Buckley’s slide guitar bubbles away giving the songs a real charge and excellent fiddle work abounds as well, but it’s Palmer’s voice and lyrics that really grab you. Rare in this world of introspective singer songwriters, Palmer has a truly narrative style, at times recalling Dylan, and consummately literate. Her voice, world weary yet full of fire, delivers these with impressive conviction throughout suggesting that she must be a powerful live performer as well.

If there is a weakness here it’s that the melody is sometimes neglected, but as a rule the force of Palmer’s voice and the intimate yet punchy production carry these songs through anyway. The beautiful “Ravens” is a real exception to this mild ctiticism, haunting and memorable, with great impact, and regardless KT Tunstall has already shown that the British public has an appetite for this sort of hard driving folk. Once you factor in the beautifully detailed instrumental performances on this record, which are left plenty of space to shine through the mix, Palmer should be more than a match for her.
Sam Wise

Maverick ****(abridged)
A lyrically sharp album with gritty vocals and powerful music that makes you sit up and listen!

Angie Palmer is known for her strong use of European influenced narratives in her music and on this album she draws on literature as her main source as in the dark visions of Edgar Allan Poe on the broodingly tormented Ravens with Angie’s wonderfully tortured and moving vocals pulling you in to the songs contents and moods.

The plaintive Columbus for a Day is about the death of a close friend and is such a beautiful eulogy that it begs for you to press repeat again so as to really listen to the words. The mood is carried on into The Ballad of John Henry with some fine harmonica sounds from Angie to compliment her stirring vocal delivery.
The arts figure again in the jauntily catchy Michelangelo and The Secret Between the Sun and the Moon is superb just for the pure simplicity of sound.

Throughout the album Angie is supported by some quite wonderful musicians forming perfect framework for Palmer’s exquisitely edgy vocals as well as her fine musicianship on acoustic guitar, banjo and harmonica. Palmer has been compared, quite fittingly, to Joni Mitchell and Lucinda Williams and her excellent songwriting partnership with Paul Mason has garnered analogies with Bob Dylan. Also championed by Bob Harris and only one of two female singer-songwiters chosen for his recent Best of British show proves the high esteem she is beginning to be held in.

This is a wonderfully diverse collection of music that should get her even more critical acclaim building on her last album Road which was included in HMV Choice’s Top Ten.
David Knowles

Americana UK
Striking fourth release from Preston based songstress
With several fine reviews for previous releases under her belt and radio play from the venerable Bob Harris, it’s strange that Palmer hasn’t made a bigger name for herself by now. Released on her own aKrasia label this album, chockfull of fine songs sensitively played should give her a big push. Fronting a great band, acoustic based, with sterling guitar work from Steve Buckley and sweet violin from Richard Curran, the music flows beautifully, at times recalling the soundscapes of Joni Mitchell’s Hejira or Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece. Taken at a leisurely pace throughout the songs are unhurried, allowing the players to stretch out creating some wonderful interplay. On the closer, Letter From Home, they approach that languid sound achieved on some of Nick Drake’s work.

Opening song, Fool’s Gold, is the jauntiest here, inspired by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s stories the violin soars like Scarlett Rivera’s on Dylans’s Desire. On The Ballad of John Henry a man looks back at his misspent days as he prepares to face his maker, Buckley has an excellent slide solo, the equal of some of David Lindley’s work. Premonition Blues is a wordy litany concerning climate change sung over sympathetic acoustic picking. The Rose of Sharon visits Steinbeck’s displaced farmers heading for disappointment in the promised land, again the music is excellent with the violin especially impressive. Palmer’s lyrics (co-written with Paul Mason) are above average and she has an attractive voice, low in the register, unforced and lived in.
Overall an excellent album. 8/10

Country Music People ½***
My review of Angie Palmer’s previous album ‘Road’ included the following gem of wisdom “This is one of those albums that exudes class from every pore and which is likely to provide new highlights each time it§ is played but which is difficult to describe in a review” and that’s pretty much my view of this one, although one addition might be that this album needs to be listened to and it’s not something just to be heard.

Many of the songs are about romance, often the end of same, although John Henry appears to be about the same bloke that Lonnie Donegan sang about, Premonition Blues could be about the apocalypse (or the Middle East situation if you prefer that description) while it would seem that Columbus For A Day is about a friend who died. The packaging again is delightful.

All the songs are collaborations between Angie Palmer and Paul Mason. Like ‘Road’ this follow-up album involves very literary lyrics – there is no singalongaAngie item. Other reviewers have compared Palmer to Joni Mitchell, but Mitchell feels rather indigestible to me. The songs here seem to me to be the product of a vivid imagination and quite a hard life up to now. Again like its predecessor the backing musicians are supremely tasteful, especially Richard Curran on violin and Steve Buckley on various guitars.

What to say of this? Well anyone who enjoyed ‘Road’ will also enjoy this one. Merely because ‘Road’ was my first exposure to Angie Palmer and this one doesn’t have the same impact because it is no longer a novelty to hear anyone as original and polished as Angie Palmer, this is still better than 99% of the albums anyone will hear this year.
John Tobler

Fishrecords.co.uk
Angie’s previous disc ‘Road’ was an excellent album that was a deserved critical and commercial success, but it was certainly never going to be an easy album to follow; from the first listen it’s obvious that ‘Tales of Light & Darkness’ is a more than worthy successor that improves on ‘Road’ in every area.

The opening track ‘Fool’s Gold’ sets the tone of the disc; it’s a wordy but exceptionally well written song with some delicate but rhythmic guitar work and intelligent and interesting backing from the assembled musicians. In particular the various guitars (national, lap steel, dobro, electric and acoustic) are superb and there are some memorable violin and viola parts throughout the disc.

The album contains 10 songs and runs to almost 55 minutes, while none of the songs are overly long they’re substantial pieces that allow both the lyrical narrative and musical themes to develop; these are full blooded singer/songwriter songs that are complete, assured and recorded without compromise.

The songs are strong and mature singer/songwriter ballads with that have elements of folk, country and blues in equal measure; comparisons are never easy and often not helpful but think Julie Miller and you’ll not be too far away.

The writing combination of Angie and Paul Mason has produced 10 impressive songs, in particular ‘Down on Zero Street’ a tale of a condemned man sprung from jail and the confused and ultimately sad events that follow, other highlights include the memorable melody of ‘Michelangelo’ and the delicacy of ‘Columbus for a Day’.

‘Tales of Light & Darkness’ is a superb album with quality at every turn, from the beautiful packaging through to the closing strains of ‘Letters from Home – very highly recommended.

Blues Matters
This, the forth CD from Angie Palmer, is shot through with all the correct ingredients to ensure that she is lifted up to a much higher profile, not only in the UK but hopefully worldwide.

As a writer Angie draws quite heavily upon literature as inspiration (with help from the philosopher Paul Mason) however she manages to ride the fine line between losing your attention with those references thereby boring the pants of you and drawing you into her world. She does the latter with ease and you are carried away on the lyrical and aural landscapes she creates on these, often long. storytelling outings.

True to tell that love and loss unfold before us as the CD progresses however it is the strong narrative songs that draw my attention. Fool’s Gold is just a cinematic joy as it moves along at a good pace with fine picking and a gloriously haunting violin towards the end. Down on Zero Street weaves a tale around a hanging. Ravens, a dark sombre and ultimately powerful song follows prior to Premonition Blues, which is just fantastic.

Columbus For A Day is pure Joni Mitchell territory, simple in construction and feel it transport you to a place of peace on a bed of acoustic guitar and those haunting strings again. I loved the Dylanesque harmonica on The Ballad of John Henry before we pick up the tempo again with the melodic Michelangelo. Could this be a possible single?

So with strong elements of blues, folk and country as a base, Angie Palmer has produced a very fine collection of 10 songs. Add to it the beautiful packaging and you end up with an album with quality stamped all over it.
Graeme Scott

NetRythmns
Angie’s already regarded by many as one of this country’s finest female singer-songwriters, yet although her three previous albums gained increasing numbers of plaudits and significantly healthy airplay (Bob Harris being her most recent radio champion) she’s still not yet quite made it into the wider consciousness of the nation. Tales Of Light And Darkness, her fourth album, is a work of considerable maturity and ought by rights to gain her that recognition. Although Angie’s music still falls between readily-pigeonholeable stools, as it were, that shouldn’t count against her as each successive album brings another different element of her musical personality out into the forefront. Angie moves easily between gentle folky rootsy Americana and more aggressive country-blues, even hinting at bluesy-rock, and virtually all points in between, and equally plausible in any of these idioms.

In many ways, Tales … is like Road part two in many respects, with the superb playing of violinist Richard Curran common to both albums. On Tales … Angie’s trusty backing crew also includes Steve Buckley (electric guitar, dobro, lap steel), Ollie Collins (basses) and Tim Franks (drums), who together stretch out almost leisurely fashion to create an at times monumental backdrop for Angie’s stories, each of which is a strong creation with its own separate identity. Once again all the songs were co-written with Paul Mason, displaying the high level of intelligence and literacy (both musical and lyrical) that we’ve come to associate with Angie’s work. Some (like Fool’s Gold and Down On Zero Street) embody a Dylanesque sense of narrative sweep, whereas Rose Of Sharon evokes Steinbeckian visions of the dispossessed. Some other songs have overtones of Joni Mitchell perhaps, with their homing in on altogether more personal journeys of love, loss and redemption; many, like Letters From Home, are highly reflective and steeped in the restless sense of a necessary moving-on that’s very much tempered with realism. There are darker moments too, like Ravens, where the lover’s desperation is conveyed with a rather Poe-esque severe beauty of imagery, and Premonition Blues with its looser feel and its old-timey, homespun philosophy of resignation. Columbus For A Day, perhaps the most personal statement of all, deals simply and poignantly with the death of a close friend. Throughout this range of emotions, Angie’s voice proves ideally expressive, displaying a deep, worldly, gritty toughness with a distinctly tender edge – she’s been compared to Lucinda Williams, but I think Angie’s expressive potential is probably more akin to that of Julie Miller. So here’s another impressive, highly assured set from Angie, housed in a neat and attractive digipack – high production and presentation values rule as before!
Dave Kidman

What they said about ‘Road’

HMV Choice: Top 10 Albums July/August 2004
Singer-songwriter Angie Palmer blends folk and country with blues and rock and, while you can hear the influences of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, she also manages to create her own distinctive sound.

Palmer’s strong voice sounds equally at home on both melancholy ballads and chugging rockers-she gives a fine demonstration of her many different moods across the nine songs on ‘Road’, which finds her returning to her stripped down acoustic routes.

But don’t panic-Angie Palmer is no navel-gazing, bedsit-anthem composer. She brings a remarkably mature approach to affairs of the heart and intelligently waxes philosophical here. Her willing ness to jam songs with so many high-culture reference points brings to mind Bob Dylan’s mid- 1960s output, with the album’s last track, Down The Street Of The Cat Who Fished throwing up references to the likes of Godot, Catherine Deneuve and Desdemona.

Appropriately enough, Angie thanks “Cafe Philosophique” for the aesthetics. This is definitely one for the grown ups.
Garth Cartwright

Mojo Magazine ****
Genuine Americana from Preston.

Imagine a Joni Mitchell raised on records by Robert Earl Keen. It’s not hard to visualise. For Angie Palmer the road has seemingly gone on forever – first via a seven year jaunt round Europe and more recently a gaggle of homeland gigs involving bars and Barns in Cumbria. A guitarist who can fashion great licks at the drop of a collection cap – “the better I played the better I ate” -she is a writer of considerable distinction as her wordy but worthy opener, Footprints In The Snow, demonstrates in spades.

Backed by a band that includes fiddler Richard Curran(Bert Jansch), guitarist Mark Townson(The Swamp Dogs) and Keyboardist Alan Gregson(Cornershop), Palmer hightails it through the stomping Fishtails and hits the melancholy button for the small but beautiful Followed Down Sundown.

One to be played at regular intervals.
Fred Dellar

Country Music People*****
“Spotlight Album of the Month”: September 2004

This is an exquisite release, beautifully packaged and a credit to everyone involved in it. This is Angie Palmer’s third album and if they’re even half as good as this one they should be investigated.

She writes intelligent and literate songs with Paul Mason and they are all engaging in the same way as those of Mary Chapin Carpenter (particularly The Ballad of Love and Strife and the fascinating- and long at nearly nine minutes- final track The Street of the Cat Who Fished, which includes half a verse in French).

Fishtails is a little different from the other tracks, swampy R&B with lyrics reminiscent of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues that are basically a list. There are also elements here of Bridget St. John and Gillian Welch (the latter is also mentioned on Palmer’s website and her excellent band are called The Revelators, no doubt in polite acknowledgement of Welch’s Time The Revelator).

The subject matter of these songs is mainly about the trials and tribulations of romance, and maybe Palmer, who sings very well and also plays guitar and banjo (Gillian Welch again), has been a victim- but then haven’t we all? However Palmer makes this hackneyed subject sound interesting, which is a rare achievement.

There are more long tracks (five minutes or more) than short ones, but a measure of how well this has been arranged, performed, recorded, and presented is that boredom was the last thing on my mind when listening to it (and that’s a rare accolade these days).

This is one of those projects that exudes class from every pore, and which is likely to provide new highlights each time it is played. If the band goes on the road with this album only a fool would avoid seeing them. Let’s hope they are as good live as in the studio. A definite one for my albums of the year- if anyone asks me for a list.
John Tobler

Uncut***
This Month in Americana Nov. 2004
The Lancashire-based Palmer has a delicious hair-in-the-voice approach that gives her a tough edge over her more fey contemporaries. This her third album after 2001’s self-funded romantica obscura and predecessor ‘A Certain Kind of Distance’ is mostly just acoustic and voice, sparsely adorned with the decorative frills of guitarist Mark Townson, acoustic bass, violin, mandolin, and cello (the slow string fade of ‘Followed Down Sundown is outstanding).

We’re in Joni Mitchell/Shawn Colvin territory here- pin-drop ballads with the faintest country-blues undertow- but, as on ‘Fishtails’ she can pout like the sassiest of bar room queens too. Impressive.
Rob Hughes

Americana UK****
‘Road’ is unbelievably the third independent release from UK based singer- songwriter Angie Palmer; Unbelievable from the point of view that she has not been snapped up by a record company… surely one of the UK based labels could make room for an artist of this promise on their roster. Palmer finds herself back on these shores following years spent as an itinerant minstrel, busking the towns of Europe. This was time spent honing her talents as a performer & acquiring the emotional raw materials that she has shaped into the songs presented here.

Opener ‘Footprints in the Snow’ builds into a rollicking travelogue, employing vivid imagery and poets flourish that have handed Palmer her very own ‘Tangled up in Blue’. Whilst sadly she does not return to anything quite as raucous again it is still a beautiful collection. The subtle blues of ‘When You Call (for Lucia)’ and the exquisite ‘Less than I Need You’; the latter clearly informed by her years on the road…’I've been rich & I’ve been poor, Good & bad’s knocked on my door, I’ve seen the old turn into new, but I need tomorrow less than I need you.’ For those looking for a reference point, Palmer is not as grungy as Lucinda Williams, but possesses a definite edge over many of her contemporaries. I would like to have heard some more up- beat material on the record, not because the slow material was in any way deficient, simply because she does it so well.

I don’t just think she should be getting her stuff out to Loose, Snowstorm, Laughing Outlaw etc. I think they should be hunting her out, before she becomes the one that got away.
PG http://www.americana-uk.com

Fishrecords.co.uk
One of the Top Ten of 2004….Recommended.
We receive many self-released albums for consideration, in general they’re a mixed bag with the occasional gem, but unfortunately most just aren’t suitable – after my first listen to ‘Road’ I was checking to see if this really was a self released disc without a label behind it as it’s one of the most striking independent releases I’ve heard – it’s confident, assured, varied and a fully formed and realised collection.

‘Road’ is a really easy disc to listen to, this is possibly because there are identifiable vocal and musical influences throughout, but these are very subtle and rather than coming across as a pastiche, it gives the disc an accessible and welcoming feel, but she manages to strike the perfect balance between familiarity and freshness as this obviously a distinct and individual piece of work.

Lyrically this is an interesting album, she covers traditional songwriter themes well on many of the songs, but the first and last tracks are the obvious standouts, they’re both substantial songs with dramatic and vivid lyrics that are full of myth and metaphor and certainly open to varied interpretation. It’s a musically diverse album that moves between styles well, but overall there’s the slightest country feel throughout– this is probably due to the choice of instrumentation which has a good amount of excellent violin and mandolin on top of the standard acoustic and electric guitars. Other detail is provided by cello and Hammond, and this mix of instrumentation works together well and suits both the acoustic and the fuller sounding songs, but even at its busiest everything is well controlled and never overpowers Angie’s expressive vocals. There are a good number of standout tracks here, ‘Footprints in the Snow’ and ‘The Ballad of Love and Strife’ are both upbeat songs with great melodies that are very easy to listen to, and ‘Satellites’ is a track full of atmosphere with an excellent vocal. The final track is clearly the one that will stick with you, ‘Down the Street of the Cat Who Fished’ is a nine minute acoustic song that lyrically and structurally nods towards ‘Desolation Row’, it’s a wonderfully constructed song with a simple guitar riff and excellent lyrics.

Although Angie may not be well known outside the North West this excellent disc deserves to find its way to a much wider audience.

CDbaby.com
February 6
This is one of the best CDs we have ever received. With the warmth of Joni Mitchell, she’s the kind of artist that evokes a spontaneous exhale; a relieved sigh that comes from the comfort of her rich, solid songwriting and the modern ring of contemporary handling, reminiscent of Shawn Colvin. Angie Palmer weaves the ring of her guitar with the resonant buzz of her hearty voice and the lilting message of her songs, occasionally blessed by the voice of cello, into a collection of lightly country-tinged gems. So good in fact we are going to include it on our ‘sampler.’ This is normally reserved for cd’s that sell the most, but we love this so much we are going to include it anyway.
Derek Sivers

Folk and Roots
Palmer’s style broadly falls into the ‘Americana’ genre with clear Country and Country rock influences, amongst others, whilst certainly not being a carbon copy of any of the current well known crop from across the pond.

“Road” consists of nine jointly composed tracks and Palmer is accompanied by Acoustic Bass, Fiddle, Mandolin, and Cello alongside her own Vocals, Guitar and Banjo playing. She has also co-written all the lyrics with Paul Mason which range in subject and tempo from the more reflective “Down the Street of the Cat who Fished” to the more Honky Tonkish rocking Fishtails whilst detouring through the smoother Country song “Ballad of Love and Strife” and opens with the strong and country rocking “Footprints in the Snow”. Apart from Palmer’s mature and diverse vocal styles the lyrics themselves are incredibly strong and whilst they deal with human relationships in the broadest sense they are the signs of a very strong storyteller in their own right.

Rarely has an independent recording come along (although to be fair Palmer has spent many years learning her trade, years that were well spent) which contains such a strong mixture of songwriting, vocal and musical skills, combining a firm edge with sensitivity, a rockier component with balladry and more contemplative elements such as the lengthy Down the Street of the Cat who Fished” (worth buying for the song title alone), this is a recording that really doesn’t fail to please, no fillers, every track stands out on its own merits and a clear indication of the strength of the whole. That aside I still suspect that Palmer’s strengths even more in her live performances, and I’ll certainly be grabbing the first opportunity to test that hypothesis.

This is Palmer’s third release and with this recording she has started to mark the impression she rightly deserves (the strength of this recording alone should be suffice to ensure that) and I would imagine or more accurately predict that she will be a far more regular booking in the better venues schedules soon.

NetRythmns
Barely two years after releasing an unbelievably mature second CD (Romantica Obscura), Angie now steams along with a third, which, as its title might be taken to indicate, is less a stop-off at the Crossroads than a timely drive down the highway of rootsy Americana with no more than a passing visit to the heartland of the blues along the way. Again, Angie’s penned all the material herself in collaboration with Paul Mason, and her writing is characterised by an uplifting optimism that’s tempered by realism, giving rise to a neat kinda vibe of loose rollin’ on, movin’ on through life, that runs through the album like that very road.

Just as on Romantica Obscura, Angie ably demonstrates her innate musicality and her credibly canny way of varying the textures and tempos within the span of the album. The opening Footprints In The Snow, an uptempo slice of homespun cautionary philosophy, comes complete with a jangly momentum that marries Desire-era Dylan with Untitled-era Byrds. This cut exemplifies the sensitive and empathic approach taken by Angie’s backing band The Revelators (whose lineup doesn’t contain a single John, but does include Richard Curran on violin and mandolin!), who accompany her on Road. Additionally, and notwithstanding the considerable expertise of her four-piece band, Angie keeps the backings delightfully sparse for the most part, and on one or two cuts (When You Call, and especially Less Than I Need You) I sense she’s been taking lessons from the Gillian Welch book of restraint (the latter might well have been a lost GW outtake!). The tender Satellites, more in the soft-rock mould, could almost have come from the pen of Chris While or Julie Matthews, and gives Angie a chance to show just how fine a singer she is, on a range that takes in husky, full-throated and head-voice with equal power and conviction. Fishtails is a kind of 12-bar Subterranean Homesick roller (superb guitar work from Mark Townson here, by the way) that comes on like a bluesier Thea Gilmore, while the country-shuffle of The Ballad Of Love And Strife marries an airy, catchy Lindisfarney mandolin riff to a familiar, pithy contemporary morality. The drifting chords of Followed Down Sundown convey so well the lyric’s combination of carefree confidence and scary uncertainty (Rebecca Maunder’s cello is used to good effect here). Finally, the more lengthy but compelling Down The Street Of The Cat Who Fished is a cryptic and knowing Joni-esque parable.

This a fantastic and highly assured third album from Angie, housed in a really attractive arty digipack sleeve; and it’s high time her distinctive talents were discovered and feted further outside her native north-west.
Dave Kidman