English songstress Liz Green has delivered a melting pot of warm, rich styles and influences in her eagerly-anticipated debut, O, Devotion!, producing a simply delightful listening experience that takes you on a voyage through time and genres.
From the get-go it's clear that O, Devotion! is a well-considered and soundly constructed album. The background collaboration on opener, Hey Joe, between the slow fingerpicking of a guitar, the low, smooth tone of a trumpet and the ever lower, throbbing pulse of a tuba, is a perfect backdrop for Green's measured and dominant vocals.
Infusing elements of jazz, soul, folk and blues throughout the album, Green successfully manages to avoid pigeonholing herself as a run-of-the-mill female folk singer, the fate of many female singers over the past few years.
Most songs on Green's debut are stripped bare, highlighting her extraordinarily rich vocals. The melody within each song is created through Green's voice rather than the music scores, which play on loop as cute, constant backdrops. Whilst it's a move that truly does place the stress on Green's talent, on tracks like Luis, the repetitious nature of the guitar fingerpicking can become a little distracting.
Bad Medicine, a track debuted by Green in 2007, fits well within the other 11 tracks on O, Devotion!, suggesting that the rest of the album was constructed around the sound and style of the single that won Green the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition. As the saying goes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', and it was a solid move by Green to focus on the strength of this sole track to provide inspiration for the album. A delightful and enchanting debut.
