This album begins with a woman on a rooftop alone, singing to the birds, her voice gutsy, darkly magical. Since her first album away from her folk dynasty family, 2015’s Two Wolves, with outstanding guitarist David A Jaycock, Marry Waterson’s many talents have been unfurling themselves, like late-season roses bursting from cut branches. This record’s mood is bracing and physical, swaying between solo Sandy Denny and tracks by Waterson’s own mother Lal on the recently reissued Bright Phoebus, its backing band from the worlds of alternative pop and rock (Portishead’s Adrian Utley produces, while Kathryn Williams, John Parish and Romeo Stodart provide subtle support). These abstract, poetic songs – about crowns of dead maidens (the title track) children leaving home (the devastatingly gentle Forgive Me), and punishing relationships (the darkly erotic Gunshot Lips) – enter the bones too. Throughout, Waterson’s command wrenches, cossets and hugely impresses.
