Amazon.co.uk Review
As a session musician, cellist and singer Caroline Lavelle has a seriously classy track record, and this pedigree shows through on
Brilliant Midnight 2.0, her second solo album. Mixing classical arrangements with contemporary programming, Lavelle here delivers a quite exquisite set of songs, each wildly varying in style, but all held together by her surprisingly powerful voice and richly poetic lyrics (some of them seemingly based on a bad relationship with a music-biz type). Opening with the dramatic "Lost Voices", the album moves into "Karma" (a less tortured
Portishead), the breathy, Celtic "Anima Rising" and the layered, trip-hop folk of "Firefly Night". Then, it just keeps getting better, through the pained, piano-led "The Fall" and the Middle Eastern gothic of "Anxiety", to "Le Pourquoi", a kind of French classical-vaudeville hybrid, and the closing, cello-powered "Twisted Ends", ending with a wicked chuckle deflecting any accusations of pomposity. The only drawbacks are the bland pop of "All I Have" and a poor version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", where an inappropriate electro backing overruns the vocal. Nevertheless, it's a superb album.
--Dominic Wills
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