Blueflint

Stories from Home

Johnny RockRecords

It comes as something of a surprise that it is almost four years since the last album from Deborah Arnott and Claire Neilson, a banjo-weilding bluegrass duo from Leith, whose distinctive sound-world we have heard on High Bright Morning (2009) and Maudy Tree (2011). But that gap seems to have brought a considerable development in their sound, helped in no small part by the production work of Paul Savage at Chem 19 Studios in deepest Lanarkshire. The band (Danny Hart - making crucial contributions on fiddle and mandolin, Davey MacAulay, James Lindsay and Ali Murray) are beautifully recorded, as are the vocals of the two songwriters, with Neilson's range particularly rich. Arnott has written the bulk of the songs and in This is a Story she contributes a cute tribute to The Proclaimers, with whom the pair have toured, which owes as much to Chris Difford. But while the chaps' songs are regularly metrical, both Arnott and Neilson are often unconcerned about whether the melody and the words fit nicely together, far less rhyme. This is in equal measure charming and a bit irritating, so that the more symmetrical, and spare, Don't make a fool out of me, which closes the album with lovely harmonies, cannot help but stand out.

Keith Bruce