Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5
Who needs a good horror story to send the chill up the spine, the encouraging shiver of keen anticipation of a set of songs that place the hairs on the back on the arm to full attention and the wide eyed look of appreciation at a haunting piece of art? Who needs a good horror story when the beauty of four female voice well versed in their craft can achieve the same effect without the need to keep one eye open and clutching a loved one tight with fear rather than affection.
The Poozies may have slimmed down to a four-piece but the sound of a quake stirring in the heart, the quiver of the blank machine finding a reason to resonate and keep time with the beautiful combination of a sensational fiddle, guitar, accordion, harps and heartbreaking vocals that are wall to wall in Into The Well are truly as expansive as they are evocative and memorable.
The past may loom large in the thoughts of the lyrics, both personally and as part of the far reaching effect that the traditional has when looking for inspiration in which to explain the present. However, The Poozies are more than resilient, more than capable in which to handle the responsibility that comes with performing such music to a section of society who holds the truth in their very fibre of being.
What comes through, almost seismic in its fluid-like state is the passion, the chase of the perfect and the very real honesty that all four women perform with. In tracks such as Southern Cross, Sally Barker’s new and rather exquisite song of revenge from beyond the shadow of death in Ghost Girl, the sometimes painful memory that sits in Small Things in the Cupboards, the sense of forgotten time in Achiltbuie and the all encompassing Celtic that weaves its way through the ten tracks.
For Mary Macmaster, Sally Barker, Eilidh Shaw and Mairearad Green, Into The Well is a huge return, an album that really tears in the thought of past and present and how the framing of Time is not without casualties and heroes.
There is no need to look any further than Into The Well for the shiver of anticipation and the accuracy of personal truth that the traditional allows.
Ian D. Hall