Review: Nerina Pallot's Year Of The Wolf - The Middle Eight

Put Your Hands Up. Nerina's masterpiece. The call is so ebullient. "I only see stars when I'm with you, oh this is my bosom that I hold you." The passion that everyone dreams about.

Turn Me On Again has rock guitar at the start, but there are big strings and happy singalong vocals. "Got your fingers on my wrist now, accidentally on purpose."The choir is sort of a chant that kids might sing.

And a big rock guitar solo - thanks Bernard Butler - I distrust this will go well live, but it's not my favorite.

All Bets Are Off has verses reminiscent of classic Bonnie Raitt "woman singing in a bar" tunes, but the choir is all swooning strings. It makes heartbreak sound sound like a splendid moment of freedom (and, dare I say, like a hit single?). The middle eight has an extended instrumental string section that is rare these days - Nerina lets this song stretch out languidly. The end is amazing: a hushed instrumental harp coda.

This Will Be Our Year is simpler, with the sound right up front and horns on the chorus.Much of this album sounds like a 1970's singer/songwriter record, like Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Elton John. This could well have been recorded in 1974.

If I Lost You Now is pure Norah Jones meets Adele. A concise guitar ballad.

Butterfly reminds me of Sheryl Crow. And this is not quite good news.

I Believe is hilarious. The chorus - a bit chanty - is "Don't make me your shit, don't pay me your shit / We both've got problems, we're living with it, living with it." Drinking song!

Grace starts as a country tune, with guitar and voice. A cello appears on the chorus and it melts into a heartbreaker: "I just wanna love you, I just wanna try. Cuz life is so little and we're both gonna die. as tenacious as we're here, we must try."

I Do Not Need What I Do Not Have is not a Snead O'Connor cover. It starts out spookily, but the beat threatens to reverse it into a bar song. The choir has a lot of "oooh oohhhs" Now is the time to say that Bernard Butlerdoes not actually make Nerina sound like Duffy, thank God. I was disturbed about that he would Motown her to death.

Will You Still Love Me fits into a tune of Nerina tunes that sound like standards (It Was Me is another). That sort of soft and strings ballad, but so it gets a bit more jaunty in the second half. The choir is a keeper. Short and lovely at 2:51.

History Boys is the big ballad, with very high vocals. Reminiscent of a Rufus Wainwright song. "All these ghosts, sons of mothers." "How will I veil the dread in my front?" A piano and cello/violin breakdown midway through. "How do you sleep with all that you've done? Sending somebody else's son to die?. saluting your own charade as we trace up in this heartless parade." The end will pay you chills.
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Year Of The Beast is out now in England and Europe. There is no scheduled US date.