release date: Mar. 5, 2007
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,54]
producer: Ewan Pearson
label: Virgin Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Here It Comes Again" - 2. "A-Z" - 3. "It's All True" - 5. "Hands Up to the Ceiling" - 9. "Grand Canyon" - 10. "By Piccadilly Station I Sat Down and Wept" - 11. "Raise the Roof"
2nd solo album by Tracey Thorn released after Everything but the Girl has been put on a longtime halt. Ewan Pearson has produced 6 of 11 tracks, Tom Gandey two songs, and Charles Webster, Martin Wheeler and Alex Santos are all credited for producing one track each. It's been more than 7 years since her last album, Temperamental from 1999 with future husband Ben Watt [Thorn and Watt were married in 2008]. In the meantime Thorn has given birth to and helped raising three children, and this is the long-awaited comeback.
Musically, Thorn combines alt. dance and downtempo associated with EBTG on their last three albums of the late 90s with a softer tone of typical synthpop sound with traces of chamber pop. The album is far from her solo debut, A Distant Shore from 1982, and it would have been a surprising attempt to follow that in style. Out of the Woods is of course a delicate sonic experience, and I guess the biggest single characteristic about the album is its diversity. Some songs are strong synthpop compositions, others are club-like downtempo songs that tastes of Temperamental (1999) and Walking Wounded (1996) and then others have a distinct sophisti-pop quality that takes us further back down the road with Everything but the Girl. On top of it all, Thorn binds it all together with her melancholic alto vocal, which hasn't dated one bit. Cleverly, she narrates about familiar tales that circle around love and relationships. In fact, the album just takes off as if she hadn't been out - or: in the woods.
The album is a pleasant return from one of England's finest voices of popular music and a very recommendable album.
[ allmusic.com, The Guardian 4 / 5 stars ]
