Anna Calvi is a dramatic performer, armed with a fearsome guitar sound and a voice that can pivot from languorous to carnivorous in a heartbeat. Her songs, however, can struggle to match those raw materials, remaining true to a generic, brooding aesthetic that has played out better, many times, elsewhere. Nick Launay, Nick Cave’s go-to producer of the past 15 years, mans the desk for Calvi’s third effort, Hunter, where she still struggles to throw off what must now be very tiresome PJ Harvey comparisons.
That said, this is very much a resonant record, set in the here and now, with melodies to the fore. Hunter is red in tooth and claw, rending gender assumptions asunder and casting Calvi as an Alpha (“I divide and conquer!”), on a song that hymns female lust via finger-clicks and a gutsy six-string squall. Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy evens it up for the guys.
Though Calvi is notionally channelling her inner predator here, her cool glide is actually more fearsome. On Swimming Pool, named after the David Hockney paintings, she is in arpeggiating mode, a chanteuse imagining queerness as an elegant given. This tableau conjures up a gutsier Julee Cruise, making for a refreshing change.
