Annabel Allum – Absent

Distinctive voices...really distinctive voices that is...are all too rare these days, but there’s something different about Annabel Allum’s delivery that sticks with you long after the last musical notes have faded away. There’s more than a little pain in there for sure together with a slightly other worldly quality, neither inhabiting this one or the next. It’s a strangely beautiful sound fully utilised on her haunting new EP Absent, 4 songs of defiant alienation clearly shaped by a childhood spent, as the accompanying press release puts it, ‘roaming the woods, building dens and getting her knees dirty’. Sounds a hell of a lot better than spending endless hours popping selfies up on the Intermess eh? Pick of the EP, the title track itself, has echoes of Delores O’Riordan and Sinead O’Connor at their potent best (and that's some praise), with a vocal performance that twists itself into your heart like a rusty blade. Powerful stuff. 

Absent is out on Till Deaf Do Us Party Records / Propriety Records on August 10^th