Eight Pointed Star [CD]

The third album of powerfully vivid songwriting from Marina Allen. Beautifully orchestrated, highly melodic and delivered with unrivalled lyrical perspective. Across two acclaimed records, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter has ripened a rare harvest, but her third studio album is an arrival home. Taking fragments and stories from Marinas past, Eight-Pointed Star deftly weaves together a new future, in what feels for all the world like a glittering, clear-eyed modern classic of alternative folk and Americana. For fans of Aldous Harding, Fiona Apple and Waxahatchee. Ineffable and timeless, this collection of songs holds a curiosity thats as open to you as you are to them. Compared to the soaring and swelling compositions of Allens second album Centrifics or the innocent tranquillity of Candlepower, the world of Eight Pointed Star is more deeply addressing and open-armed. It favours a type of soul-searching that doesnt dwell in complications, and is open to answers. Rolling guitars rise and fall with the canyons and dust is kicked-up from the red scarred earth. Allens vocals pure and crystalline whilst the instrumentation is rich and bursting with brightness. You can hear contentment radiating from the music, with Chris Cohens production offering a full-band affair. Allens affection runs deepest for singers who in her words can really sing, from The Roches to Karen Dalton, Joanna Newsom to Meredith Monk. But these influences vanish like ghosts in the attic when she starts to sing herself. Allen has a voice that stands up to the canon inimitable and its never sounded more resolute than it does here. 1. I'm the Same 2. Deep Fake 3. Red Cloud 4. Swinging Doors 5. Bad Eye Opal 6. Easy 7. Love Comes Back 8. Landlocked 9. Between Seasons

• Format Detail: CD
• Format: CD
• Genre: Indie & Alternative