Oh Beth, where have you been? ‘Sugaring Season’ is perfect for her return, full of eccentricities coupled with some superb song-writing and musicianship, and production as perfect as a diamond. Opener ‘Magpie’ is stunning, bursting at the seams with ideas mixing her old style folk pop with the edge of PJ Harvey or Cat Power. Each song melts into the next, yet each has very different styles, from the brooding and breathy ‘Candles’, the angsty film-score of ‘Something More Beautiful’ to the waltz ditty of ‘See Through Blue’. It’s charming in every way, but still rooted in the pop folk that brought Beth to us in the first place.
8/10
Words by GEMMA HAMPSON
