Thea Gilmore, Liejacker

5 / 5 stars
Stephanie Merritt applauds the poetic outsider whose use of kitchen utensils is unparalleled

It's a constant source of amazement to me that Thea Gilmore is not more widely feted across the land, but perhaps her eighth album will change that, not least because its first single, 'Old Soul', features Zutons frontman Dave McCabe and is getting airtime on Radio Two. Over the years (she recorded her first album at 18 and is not yet 30) Gilmore has jealously preserved her outsider status, despite being courted by various mainstream labels. She has proved herself as one of the few songwriters of her generation who truly deserves the label 'indie', in its old sense of genuine artistic independence rather than in the often misused sense of having an asymmetrical haircut.

She is also one of the few contemporary songwriters who is a true poet, and in the past her songs have railed against her generation's lack of engagement, the march of capitalism, the cynical superficiality of the music industry. Liejacker sees that anger tempered somewhat by a more reflective mood; here you find a greater concentration of ballads, fewer of the spikier songs that have punctuated previous albums. On her blog, Gilmore has described Liejacker as 'the lovechild of whisky and heartache', and has also called it her most personal album to date. The result is simply a beautiful, deeply affecting piece of work.

To complement this pared, emotionally honest tone, the production feels understated, and has preserved the spontaneity of the original recordings, made in her tiny home studio and featuring the use of kitchen utensils and a chimney hood for percussion on some tracks. She has also been experimenting with more exotic instruments, many of which she plays herself, from the Dobro and National guitars she employs on a couple of tracks to ukuleles, mandolins and harmoniums.

Though she hasn't entirely discarded her hard-edged metaphors and oblique storylines, there are songs here that come right from the heart of her own recent experience, including 'Black Letter', a testament to her experience of depression. 'Black letter is a promise or a curse,' she sings, hinting at the ambiguity of despair, out of which comes art (if you're lucky). The lovely 'Old Soul' is full of yearning and the search for home - and calls forth an unexpected sweetness from McCabe's voice.

Many of these songs hark back to traditional roots - there is a strong blues influence, and if there's one criticism it's that she relies too heavily on the crackly vocal distortion to evoke a vintage sound, an effect she has used more sparingly on previous albums. But the outstanding song here is the magnificent 'The Lower Road', a duet with Joan Baez (who invited Gilmore to tour with her in 2004) and featuring the fiddle of Steve Wickham of the Waterboys. The lines 'From the blood in a far country/ To the war of just growing old/ We travel a lower road/ And it is lonely, and it is cold' marry the personal and political concerns of her writing, and those two unmistakable voices lifted together will make your heart catch, your skin prickle and your eyes fill with tears. Go and buy this, and then tell all your friends.

Download: 'Old Soul', 'The Lower Road', 'Black Letter'