Album Review: Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts - Up From the Deep (GR)

Horizon award nominees Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts return with the follow up to their 2008 debut album SHADOWS AND HALF LIGHT. With Katriona's natural sense of melody combined with Jamie's rhythmic drive, the Barnsley-based duo continue to deliver their distinctively rich and inventive arrangements, in both their complex instrumental pieces as well as their original self-penned songs, indicating once again that this duo refuse to rest on their laurels, never go for the easy option and always strive for something challenging, smart or at least different.   

Handsomely packaged in a sleeve designed by Rob Bishop, with Barnaby Aldrick's moody photography and Scott Wrightson's now familiar logo, UP FROM THE DEEP once again showcases this young duo's dexterous playing and their unique musical partnership, with a handful of songs and tunes that the duo have been playing around clubs and festivals for the last few months or so. 

Opening with Jamie's perceptive All I've Known, with its bleak message of weary resignation and defiance, driven home like a six inch nail, the duo present a veritable opus of an opener, with its driving no nonsense rhythm, augmented by Katriona's fiddle interlude, the traditional Childgrove, demonstrating the duo's command over complex musical arrangement. 

Almost torn between her English and American influences, Katriona makes no bones about her love of Country music and in particular Bluegrass, which hasn't gone unnoticed in her live performances, where the fiddler can often be seen sparring with some of Nashville's best. For Off to California, Katriona teams up with Cia Cherryholmes on banjo for a cameo appearance, the tune of which is inspired by the traditional hornpipe of the same name.

With both Katriona and Jamie's busy schedule in other musical combos, Katriona being a one time member of Brit-Bangles Tiny Tin Lady and currently a member of Rosie Doonan's Snapdragons and Jamie being the guitarist in the popular folk band Kerfuffle, the duo are no strangers to busy schedules and gruelling tours, which continues on as Kat and Jamie accept an offer to tour with Fairport Convention on their forthcoming 2011 winter tour. Katriona tackles the subject of life on the road in No Rest for the Wicked, with its folk rock immediacy carrying the sombre message of endless driving, late nights and the craving for sleep. The song's lyric also provides the album with its title. Despite the weary nature of endless touring, Katriona adds that it's all 'strangely addictive' nevertheless. 

By way of contrast, Fleetwood Fair returns to the sort of writing we first heard on the first album with Hunter Man, again with almost sinister undertones. As its coda tips its hat to another fair of the North Yorkshire variety, Katriona shows an exceptional flair for writing timeless folk ballads.

In the poetic The Bookseller's Story, Jamie has also written a modern folk song of graceful beauty, based on a Sheffield bookshop owner's epitaph. Jamie's suggestion that people would come to read the bookseller's epitaph is delightfully poignant, especially in a time when we seem hell bent on shutting all our libraries. Jamie's instrumental opening to Shepherd, an arrangement of the traditional Shepherd and his Fife combined with the traditional tune Shepherd's Hay, brings a moment of pastoral calm to the album. The instrumental pieces on the album sit alongside the songs with equal importance, including a couple of Katriona's own compositions, The Badgers Set (The London T Junction/Upper Badgers Bottom) this time without Katriona's tongue-in-cheek live preamble, and the sublime Tennessee Green, both of which indicate a strong sense of melodic structure, together with Jamie's funky Punch and Chase, coupled with the traditional Wallom Green. 

The album's finale comes with Kat and Jamie's take on the traditional Nothing At All, aided by PJ Wright on pedal steel, incorporating Katriona's Wheelhouse Willow, presumably a nod to a very special place indeed. With the help of Jack Theedom's sensitive double bass throughout and Dom Howell's occasional percussion, the duo has once again produced a mature album of startling quality.