Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
- Written by Rosie Duffield
It’s always interesting to hear the debut album of a band or artist who’s had a steady amount of hype building against them for a while. It could go either way; Arctic Monkeys managed to deliver a successful first album after much anticipation... conversely there are bands like Menswear , who, after lots of excitement, managed only a handful of singles before disappearing back to whence they came.
Anna Calvi, then, should have us waiting with bated breath. She made it to the Top 15 in the BBC’s Sound of 2011, and has been endorsed by NME, The Fly and others. She recently toured with Interpol and last year performed at the Royal Albert Hall sandwiched between The Rural Alberta Advantage and Peggy Sue as part of the Hush series of gigs. There, she commanded the stage with her intricate guitar playing and all-powerful voice. But does her live presence translate on to CD?
Calvi’s expertise on the guitar is unmistakeable; the album opener ‘Rider To The Sea’ starts with ominously mournful picks akin to the soundtrack of a Western film, before transforming into something that sounds more like a harp. As the pace picks up it suddenly turns into ‘No More Words’, an altogether gentler affair where Calvi’s vocals are heard for the first time.
A gentle whisper at first, there’s no denying the strength of her voice as she moves on to a near-howl on ‘Desire’; even more so on the haunting ‘Suzanne and I’ – which bizarrely starts off sounding like Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Fix Up Look Sharp’ – although not for long. There’s something of the Bassey about her on this track; Dame Shirley’s vocals on ‘Goldfinger’ sounding strangely familiar. Her powerful voice isn’t so surprising when she states Maria Callas as one of her influences (along with Nina Simone, and classical composers Ravel and Debussy).
Anna Calvi’s style is hard to judge. There are hints of flamenco, country and western; even the occasional tinge of jazz. Whatever it is, it’s full of heaving emotion – not only in the lyrics, but in the vocals and instrumentals, too. Romantic, aching, at times a little dark – Calvi seems to put her all into each note that her fingers play out, and evidently it’s winning her fans.
Her debut Anna Calvi does, in fact, live up to her live performance (although I think, as in most cases, live gigs generally have the edge). A theatrical record, it’s full of gothic romance – the final track is the perfect ending to an album full of promise of what’s to come over the next year or two; it's called ‘Love Won’t Be Leaving’, and it seems that with this talent, Anna Calvi won’t be any time soon either.