PARNASSUS REVISITED

This CD is maybe even more impossibly rare than the original pressings of her early albums, available only at her increasingly infrequent gigs, or for inflated prices on sites like Discogs.

After 40 years away, her voice is still immediately recognisable - a bit lower and thicker, but the phrasing, resonance and timbre are still there. There are no additional instrumentalists, just Shelagh and her (impressive) acoustic guitar. In the absence of any credits on the sleeve, I'm assuming these are all her compositions, other than three traditional songs. She sings one of those traditional songs unaccompanied ("The Snows They Melt The Soonest") and provides creative guitar arrangements for the other two (particularly the dramatic "Down By The Greenwoodside"). There's a swing jazz influence for "The Big Easy", the other new songs mostly harking back to her earlier style. I'm still assimilating the lyrics for this album, but her poetic skills certainly appear intact, and some songs like "Nocturne" and "Pirates" bring a drama that wasn't always apparent in her earlier songs. There are new recordings of two of her early songs, which highlight most the deepening of her voice.

Again, is this prog? Probably not by most people's definitions, and certainly less easy to argue so then previous tracks like "Stargazer". She does display an ambitious harmonic language that lifts this above the average folk-pop or singer-songwriter fare - just don't come here if you're looking for 15-minute epics.

I initially gave it three stars just because of the 'is this prog' question...but no, she's getting four!