Anna Calvi - One Breath

It was a slightly cruel twist of fate that Anna Calvi should release her debut album less than a month before the time that PJ Harvey released Let England Shake, 2011's stand-out record. Both went on to be nominated for the year's Mercury Prize and it was a little like the idea of watching Bjorn Again compete with ABBA at Eurovision. Not to put a dent in either lady's artistic credentials, of course.

This time around she doesn't have quite that level of shadow, and managed to chart at #32 - some eight places above that of her debut's attempt. In fact, everything about Anna Calvi seems to reflect the story of an artist finding her voice; Calvi herself didn't take up singing until her mid-twenties, out of what she called a phobia, and is one of those rare musical talents that are making their breakthroughs in their 30s rather than their wide-eyed teens. Would it be terribly ageist to say that explains her lack of soppy, poppy nonsense, and her oodles of stage presence? Oh it would? Oops, best move on.

Those looking for hook-laden rock might be initially taken with opener 'Suddenly' and its charming ah-ah-ah backbone, but delve a little deeper and it's a fine arrangement of weird instruments, a thumping drum beat and, crucially, a commanding voice at the crux of it. From hereon in, it gets louder and only more rewarding: 'Eliza' shakes the walls with its drums and spirals into a raucous chorus, whilst 'Cry' points out its own suitable manifesto ("all the sounds combine/ all the notes will align when you cry") just before Calvi unleashes her chilling, howling spectre voice and a jarring blues guitar scratches wildly in its chorus. Similarly primal is 'Tristan', prefixed by the ominous lyric of "god help us" as a rather Florentine (I'm not quite sure what the adjective form of Florence and the Machine would be so I'll just use the first name) backing kicks off.

Of course, it's not all dizzying noise; 'Piece by Piece' sees Calvi on a sort of electronic groove strumming along with harps, whilst 'Love of My Life' is more stylistically suited to a Black Keys record than anything we've come to expect of Calvi. Spookiness is a tool used quite often on One Breath: take the xylophone of 'Carry Me Over' which sets us up for a cinematic event, or the violence of 'Sing to Me's lyrics ("Fill me up, oh fill me whole/ tear my throat just to hear yours") matched against its elegant, vaguely Bond-themey backdrop. 

For all of the shifts of musical direction, though, there is one constant and that is Calvi's voice. She is able to switch from the usual confident, blasting muse as seen above to a hushed, sultry performance on the title track with reassuring ease, but her best is saved for the last with the knockout duo of 'Bleed Into Me' and 'The Bridge': the first a gentle construction of just a 4-note guitar that allows Anna to burn slowly, whilst the latter is a brief choir composition that's rather reminiscent of Kate Bush's wintry 50 Words for Snow album.

I read a comment somewhere about Calvi that said she was easy to admire but difficult to love, and that's a fairly accurate summary of my feelings of this album: it might not quite be the best suited to my tastes, or be the first one I go to when trying new music, but when it is on, the effect is beguiling. Calvi has a great gift for creating entrancing records, and whether or not that translates into mainstream success, or the taste of the month for the hipster elite, is quite immaterial.

Rating: 8/10
Highlights: Sing to Me; Cry; Suddenly; Bleed Into Me; Carry Me Over
Avoid: n/a

Artwork Watch: This album was not brought to you by Maxfactor.
Up next: John Newman