All-female foursome Dorec-a-belle won the Sunday Herald's unsigned band competition in 2013, securing themselves a main stage slot at last year's Wickerman Festival and, in turn, raising their profile sufficiently to encourage Creative Scotland to supply some of the funding for this debut album.
The result is a 12-track showcase for an even wider range of songwriting than originally caught our ear back in the days of their demo submission. Their roots are in folk music, but of a style that can be pushed in a bluesy direction one minute, down a country road the next. Indeed, the unusual combination of accordion and saxophone (on top of guitar and cello) means that we can be whisked from a Parisian sidewalk cafe to a Highland fireside in the blink of an eye. The songs, particularly those written by Maryann Frew, are strong, with Taken and Don't Give Up boasting the classic shape of the late 1960s/early 1970s singer-songwriter, while set closer Ebony (with its more intricate, darker arrangements) suggests that a second album would be very welcome indeed.
Alan Morrison
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article