Tagline: 'A devil born ... without horns.'
Daughter to a father with Italian roots and an English mother Anna Calvi has been surrounded by music from an early age. She learned to play the guitar and turned out to have quite an impressing voice to go with that. Twenty-eight now, she's ready to serve up her debut album and despite still being relatively unknown, she's received a fair amount of praise for it already. She's been compared to the likes of Siouxsie, PJ Harvey and Nick Cave and Brian Eno called her 'the biggest thing since Patti Smith'. Her voice and sound are at the same time reminiscent to Florence Welch. She definately took her sweet time making this album, but it's worth it. Calvi may have failed to make it to the BBC's shortlist, but there's little doubt she'll be around for a while.
Her self-titled debut starts of with the instrumental 'Rider To The Sea', driven by Calvi's raw, atmosperic guitar chords. The song creates an intruiging mood making you curious for what the rest of the album is going to sound like. On 'No More Words' Calvi's voice enters the piece, smooth and seductive and almost whispering she draws you in like a siren. The tone is definately set after such an intro. Best song on this album is probably 'Suzanne And I', with its riverting drum beat - worthy of Florence + the Machine - and moreover the unparallelled guitar rif. The beautiful 'Morning Light' stays sober almost throughout the whole four minutes, with just one well-times escalation, which fades away as suddenly as it came. On final track 'Love Won't Be Leaving' she strikes just the right chord showing a glance of her brilliance. Her sensual, longing voice combined with her guitar chords create an overwhelming yet charged atmosphere, which leads up to the grand finale, an emotional outburst with just the slightest western feel to it. Her songs sometimes feel like they could have been taken from an Ennio Morricone score: the emotional tension, the charged atmosphere, the simpel beauty, it's all in there. And if Quentin Tarantino could cast Lady Gaga as a villain then there's little doubt that at some point in time he'll have an entire movie in store for Calvi.
Sometimes Calvi goes a little overboard with the pathos. 'The Devil' has a bit of an exaggerated, operatic feel to it at its highpoints, with even a hint of Diamanda Galás as she ranges between soprano and (almost) howling in despair. But she cán pull it off. And the festival-friendly 'Desire' could just as well been an Amy Macdonald song, albeit still so much more rafined. But let's face it, those are pretty minor criticisms. She nevertheless aimed very high on this debut. Her complexicity might make her a little more challenging than last years generation of pop newcomers but at the same time so much the more interesting. And in all honesty, last years pop princesses were all too often a little dull. In that respect Anna Calvi is a breath of fresh air. 2010 was a good year, but it didn't produce that many masterpieces. After Ellie Goulding's bubblegum voice and ditto pop songs, Calvi's unconventional, lush pop symphonies - hovering between a western-feel, bluesrock and touching ballads - come pretty close. A good start of the year and a promising preview to what 2011 still has in store.
Tracklist
1. Rider To The Sea
2. No More Words
3. Desire
4. Suzanne And I
5. First We Kiss
6. The Devil
7. Blackout
8. I'll Be Your Man
9. Morning Light
10. Love Won't Be Leaving
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