Bo Bruce is someone I've written about here a lot; a wonderful singer-songwriter who was ready to give up on the career she'd worked for for years before finding fame through the unexpected route of BBC's
The Voice this time last year. She's the best thing to come out of a TV talent show in well, ever, (including the dancing dog on
Britain's Got Talent) and I was lucky enough to hear the album I'd so eagerly anticipated for the first time at a listening party in London at the end of last month.
It's been the perfect soundtrack to these last few weeks, and I can just tell already that it's one of those records I'll keep with me for a long time.
"Landslide" is just the perfect opening track, sun-rising from a gentle hum to the bleeding magic of the chorus, a song about the frustration of waiting for the right time. It leads into
"Save Me", the first single Bruce released from this album; a gorgeous infusion of the electronic and the organic. Its lyrics are both a cry for help, and accepting of the need for her own independence.
"Alive" was co-written with The Script's Danny O'Donoghue and produced by Henry Binns, an energetic ballad with the most beautiful strings. It's powerfully uplifting; it takes the imagery of a car crash and a storm to illustrate the urgency of love. With has a chorus that sounds in a lot of ways like a Script song, it incorporates the chilled electronia of Zero7 music, a combination that oddly enough sounds brilliant, and be sure to catch the incredibly moving video for this one which is out tomorrow.
"Speed The Fire" features Johnny McDaid's vocals and is another than excels in its use of vivid imagery; a burning house, burning memories and thoughts. Gita Langley's strings, again, add the heart to this song, its choruses rage from the full glow of a choir to more minimal ones, the haunting strength of Bruce's voice alone is a candle in the dark.
The record takes a darker turn as
"Telescope" clicks in, very different to the others. It's slow and cool, yet deeply angry, Bo's voice in multiple layers whirring around the ears; a song about the contrast between loving someone and being unable to see the bad in them. It's followed by
"Ghost Town", which is eerie and soft, whispers about until
that moment when the drums kick in and everything explodes.
"On The Wire" is, I guess, the closest this album has to a big dance track, the significance of drums giving it a feel that's almost tribal, reminiscent of Kate Bush or more recently, Florence.
"Holding The Light" draws a great contrast from this, minimal and stripped back to simply an acoustic guitar, the way it was written.
"Lightkeeper" is just a perfect demonstration of the greatest kind of pain turned into the greatest beauty, through it becoming art. It's a comfort song, a hymn. Lyrically it is so powerful - taking something ugly and casting a spell over it with the metaphor of
"The heart of their machines", a strong chorus and ghostly faint backing vocals. It follows with
"The Fall", where the dynamics of her gorgeous vocals just shine.
There's a bout of faith and positivity with
"The Hands I Hold", a co-write with Sia, one of the most hopeful songs about love and friendship I've heard in a long time.
"Echoes" was originally much more of a pop song, but its production was stripped back to leave the gorgeously melancholy track that it is. I think
"Golden" may be the most perfectly produced track on the record, courtesy of James Flannigan (from The Stiff Dylans!), giving it the odd effect of being joyfully uplifting as much as it's a heartbreaker.
It closes with
"How We're Made", the perfect illustration of that struggle to articulate a goodbye; facing loss and facing life. It is beautifully intense, Johnny McDaid's incredible production is reminiscent ticking clock and whirring, spinning instrumental that sounds like machines and magic spells.
Of all the ways, the poetic and the lovely, that feeling of loss is depicted through on this record, the most touching and raw lyric of them all is simply
"I just miss you."
This album exceeded my expectations so much; it isn't just the quick-release that Bruce could easily have ejected to get in the charts straight after
The Voice, or a vehicle for nothing but her vocals; it's beautifully produced, eloquently written - you can just tell from listening that this record was years in the making, not just the nine months that it took to produce.
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
- Robert Frost
Buy Before I Sleep // See Bo on tour
