Neil Spencer 

Sweet Visitor review – Nancy Kerr veers from the outstanding to the drab

The freshness of Kerr's debut solo offering is sullied by her reliance on overpoweringly traditional tunes and diction, writes Neil Spencer
  
  


Fiddler, singer and English folk stalwart Nancy Kerr delivers a solo debut of all original material, though you wouldn't know as much, so steeped are its songs in the tunes and diction of tradition. Kerr's poised vocals, spirited violin and estimable supporting crew deliver some outstanding chamber folk – the rural blaze of Sickle and Harvest, the verve of Apollo on the Docks, where an immortal visits "the slums and sleeping ports" – but there's also drab folk rock (Never Ever Lay Them Down), while the cascades of archaisms can be wearying. Their antique charms, in modern times, "hath fadeth", as Kerr has it.

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*