O’Donovan made her name with the old-timey American band Crooked Still, but her solo debut is more modern in sound.
“Beekeeper” seethes with electric guitar. The quieter “Pearls” and “Glowing Heart” – its atmospherics like fireflies – are always murmuring up towards a chorus that never quite arrives. There is an oblique bluegrass take on Anne Sexton in “Briar Rose”, prettier and less disturbing than the original poem.
Aoife O’Donovan
Fossils
(Yep Roc)