Thea Gilmore

Thea Gilmore supporters have been saying for years that the strong-voiced British folkstress hasn't received her due, and now that she is aligned with Sanctuary Records, she would seem poised for translating her veteran stature as a critic's darling in the UK into wider commercial success. Unfortunately, Gilmore has delivered a mediocre record to coincide with her shot at the big time. Harpo's Ghost is produced within an inch of its life, taking pains to emphasize its "ooh ahh" melodies, easy hooks, and choruses ready to heat up Hot AC station playlists. In the past, Gilmore has seemed more in line with the Mitchell-Baez line of folk musicians, but on tracks like "We Built a Monster," she disappears into the Sheryl Crow crowd. It is not a flattering fit.

She doesn't fare much better on plodding rockers like "The Gambler," which is one of many songs that would benefit from tighter focus. The distorted verses are set against an Aimee Mann-ish backdrop that stays unnecessarily muted, and the sudden kick-in with the big rock chorus just sounds strained.

What makes all of this baffling is that Gilmore doesn't need all the accoutrements to be commanding -- quite the contrary. She can easily grab listeners by just singing it straight, and the best moments on Harpo's Ghost are almost uniformly when Gilmore's voice and lyrics cleanly take center stage, away from the din of distracting organs, modulated harmony vocals, and faceless barroom rock. The effective, somber "Red White and Black" serves up some social commentary gleaned from her experiences touring in the States. Her narratives can be a little heavy-handed at times, as on the evocative, Western-tinged "The List" ("They got a new religion / A needle and a spoon"), but that's the risk of channeling characters who find themselves in a moment of crisis. Gilmore is a strong singer and storyteller, but, unfortunately, the songs on Harpo's Ghost usually fall short of her talents. - Adam McKibbin, The Red Alert

One of the U.K.'s most promising singer/songwriters returns after nearly a three-year absence. In the interim, Thea Gilmore had been diagnosed with clinical depression, dealt with serious illness in her family, and split with a longtime romantic partner. All of this was sure to affect her music, but Harpo's Ghost still feels like a natural successor to 2003's breakthrough release, Avalanche. Harpo's Ghost is produced again by guitarist Nigel Stonier, who isn't afraid to place Gilmore's breathy, sexy voice in a variety of edgy settings. The trick is to stuff the artist's plentiful lyrics into a vehicle that focuses attention on them yet allows her melodies to flourish, and Stonier succeeds wonderfully, shifting from the almost punkish attack of "Cheap Tricks" to the widescreen, primarily acoustic "Contessa," which borrows a few sonic tricks from U2. Both songs approach Gilmore's voice from different but equally sympathetic directions. The trip-hop traces that colored her previous work appear fleetingly on the opening "The Gambler" (not the Kenny Rogers song), but are otherwise gone now, replaced with a tougher guitar-based quartet sound on the rocking "We Built a Monster" and the circular guitar and organ of the funky and politically scathing "Everybody's Numb." Gilmore can sound both sublime and angry as she spits out "the United States of emptiness" lyrics to the latter, with pounding drums and percussion hammering home the point. Matters of the heart still power Gilmore's muse, especially when she unleashes "Call Me Your Darling," a dark love song with an inescapable hook of a chorus that stands as the album's most likely single. Stonier keeps the singer's magnificent voice up front where it belongs, and double-tracks her own harmonies to impressive effect on the ominous "Going Down," a cut that might concern her bout with depression and the problems of the previous few years. Harpo's Ghost is a strong, triumphant return for Thea Gilmore. It deserves to be the album that exposes her formidable vocal, lyrical, and melodic talents to a larger audience, especially in the States. ~ Hal Horowitz, All Music Guide