Featuring songs by Boo Hewerdine, Ron Sexsmith, and Mark Nevin, Angels & Electricity adds a more accessible sheen to the folkier strains of Mirmama, resulting in a perfectly balanced album of languid, lush adult pop.
Review:
In these health-conscious times, it's tempting to distrust the sweet and
pretty. But not everything that tastes good is bad for you. Bear that in mind as
you listen to Eddi Reader's latest solo album, on which she teams up with
fellow British pop-folkie Boo Hewerdine (who plays guitar, produces, and wrote
half the songs) to deliver a luscious program of bittersweet lyrics couched in
whipped-cream melodies and airy, largely acoustic production.
“Kiteflyer's Hill” takes the threadbare conceit of doomed summer love and
turns it into a melancholy but quietly joyful celebration of memory;
Reader's version of Hewerdine's “Bell, Book and Candle” beats his own by a
mile, primarily due to her gently virtuosic singing; “Follow My Tears” is a
heartbreaking portrait of an aging emigrant remembering her good and decent
husband and the home they reluctantly left in their youth. No fast songs
here – from beginning to end, this is music that will lull you into a
blissful half-doze and mostly keep you there. But that doesn't mean it's boring
any more than its sweetness means it's bad for you.
All Music Guide – Rick Anderson