Anna Calvi | Loppylugs

Submitted by Neil Hornsey on 17 February 2013 - 9:34pm

Cover:

Artist:

Anna Calvi

album-ID:

a_102

Nationality:

Year:

2 011

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Rider To The Sea*No More Words*Desire*Suzanne And I*First We Kiss*The Devil*Blackout*I'll Be Your Man*Morning Light*Love Won't Be Leaving

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_38

Now-num:

Spotify-URL:

6gpJMSVighuTtIrnOjyyA4

Grooveshark-URL:

Anna+Calvi/5566693

Short-title:

annaCalvi

nominator-ID:

u_13

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

MusicBrainz-URL:

40842435-2463-413c-8602-c381f75a4642

Wikipedia-URL:

Anna_Calvi_(album)

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

anna-calvi/anna-calvi

Discogs-URL:

Anna-Calvi-Anna-Calvi/master/305916

Allmusic-URL:

anna-calvi-mw0002086389

BBC-URL:

jjm5

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reviewers-IDs data

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75

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

3-7

My Cousin in the drummer, and that's all that's important here.

Two superb tracks, and eight pretty decent fillers... if you like the style it's a great album. If you don't, I imagine it could get boring pretty quickly.

One of Loppy's more attractive offerings, too.
65

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Style over substance

3-7

10

I dig the big, twangy guitar sound and the echoey, open arrangements. It's a bit Chris Isaak meets PJ Harvey in a film noire inspired car advert sort of sound. Beyond the grand and slick playing, I'm not sure the songs are particularly worthwhile. They look the part alright and her voice has a sort of aching, longing quality to it. But she never actually moves you at any point, even in the couple of very strong songs. That does then make you feel that it is a bit of branding exercise being undertaken, admittedly very well, rather than a genuine, artistic outpouring of her soul – which is what it would seem to have promised.
64

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

Anna Calvi

3-7

Marked up for Blackout and Desire; marked down for the rest being unmemorable.
58

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
50

reviewed by

Tim Wiseman

Too much of a reach, too big of an album for Calvi.

1-3-7-10

2-4-5-6-8-9

Teamed with accomplished musicians and armed with some pretty decent (and a couple of very good) songs, it's pleasant enough but never took hold for me. The songs are somehow too big, the distance between vocals and band too much, and while there are echoes of Chrissie Hynde or PJ Harvey here in the timbre and feeling, those echoes are brief, perhaps accidental, as Calvi goes through various gears and various set-ups; she's seemingly in search of a sound: sometimes even within one song. High spots are the musicianship in the slide guitar, the crisp drums, and the two real standout tracks which have rich anthmeic sounds. But too often the voice fills in the gaps - \"oh, oh, oh\", \"desi, ir, ire\" - the songscould and should be sparer, the vocals should know when to give. And those vocals are not pitch perfect as Calvi will sometimes go off in search of the right note. But I would still give her third album a listen to see where she's gone.