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O, Devotion! is a product of London's Toe Rag Studios – famous for its analogue equipment and for having birthed The White Stripes’ Elephant, notably – and the production fits Green’s music well. Hers is a very English take on a style frequently redolent of pre-war American folk music. Dated though it may seem, you will not find any simple and crude facsimiles here.
Green emits a pained persona on almost every track, and even when the music takes a turn for the upbeat, she maintains a dark tone alongside dashes of black humour. Her delivery is smooth and mournful throughout; she laments magnificently where others might merely sing of passing woes. There are some old favourites amongst these tracks, like Bad Medicine, a mainstay for some years now; but Green presents much newly-penned material, too. The addition of a brass section beefs up certain songs, like the jaunty Midnight Blues, whilst absolutely making others, like the wandering, mercurial and waltzing Displacement Song.
The beauty of O, Devotion! is to be found in its simplicity. It would have been easy for there to be overbearing orchestrations; but the main focus has to be, and indeed is, the bare bones of each composition – carefully thought-out and expertly told lyrics backed by an acoustic guitar, wielded with incredible prowess and variety. The most stripped-back it gets is during the morbid closer Gallows, which opens with the lines "Come back to the wagon, this horse and this cart / They'll take you to the gallows at nine o'clock sharp". It's a slow, morose culmination of the album's previous works, hanging heavily on the heart as the end draws in.
Liz Green has been biding her time, but although the wait for O, Devotion! has been long, there can be no doubt that it has been worth it. Its careful arrangements, coupled with Green's unusual but deliberate vocal style and ear for a story, comprise a lasting testament to her talent. --Luke Slater
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Customer Reviews
singer/songwriter Liz Green's debut album 'O, Devotion' is a winner.
The folksy/jazzy feel of these ten tracks relies on little more than her
curiously distinctive voice, acoustic guitar and a modest instrumental
ensemble to make its mark. Her hollow tone, flattened vowels and well-
modulated vibrato have a droll quality but imbue her pithy lyrics with raw
authenticity, crisply and sympathetically captured by producer Liam Watson.
The use of brass in the recording is particularly impressive and despite
the transatlantic roots of her compositional style the feel of the album is
quintessentially English in effect; as dry as a bone but not without humour.
'Displacement Song' is a fine example of her craft; the oompah accompaniment
and somewhat sleazy sax giving Ms Green a bouncy platform for her gently rocking
vocal performance. A bit dark and devilish in a Wiemar cabaret kind of way.
'Rag and Bone', too, would work well in a small smoky basement dive at 2am.
The quasi-paranoid narrative of 'Luis', with its elusive melodic structure and
keening brass intrusions, is a strangely bitter and unsettling invention and
final track 'Gallows' is as gloomy as gloomy gets. A somber story well-told.
'O, Devotion' is a strong first-showing from an idiosyncratically maverick talent.
Highly Recommended.
I love Liz's voice. It's a bit Devendra Banhart or Karen Dalton but more subtle. Definitely worth a listen.
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