REVIEW FROM www.livingtradition.co.uk

ANNA TABBUSH - Waiting in the Wings
Reiver Records RVRCD07

Anna Tabbush's debut solo album is a very promising beginning for this young folk singer. Having written most of the songs on the album, as well as playing flute, fiddle, piano and melodeon, she certainly aims to make her mark. She has a great voice with plenty of emotion in it, an essential for a good folk singer and she carries the lead easily.

Tabbush has an odd mix of modern and traditional elements in her music and occasionally it doesn't sit very well. Her songs deal primarily with relationships and she tends to use pop song clichés rather a lot for someone singing in the folk genre, which can be slightly jarring. However, having said that, her songs do stick with you and I find myself humming them throughout the day. I have also found myself returning to her album again and again. Her music is infectious and has a youthfulness to it that makes the album very enjoyable, despite its periodic forays into the land of cliché.

Particularly good tracks include the traditional, ‘One More Day/ Rockin' and Rollin' Johnny’, ‘Going Through the Motions’ and ‘Carry Me Back to the Ocean’.  ‘Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite’, would not sound out of place in a movie adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, but with a bit more edge to it. Nick Sowden provides backing vocals on several tracks and the two voices harmonise well together, adding depth to the songs.

Tabbush shows a lot of potential on Waiting in the Wingsand one can only hope that her music continues to mature as she does. Tabbush is definitely an artist to watch and her debut album, although trite at times, is full of youthfulness and one can not help but enjoy listening to it. 

Jean Price