“I was born with millennium tension/ It’s all gone now.” The first words from Katell Keinig’s mouth on High July make for the finest opening couplet on any album this listener has set ears on in some time. The song itself, ‘What’s The Only Thing Worse Than The End Of Time?’ is an unobtrusively catchy little ditty that will creep unannounced into your cranium and set up temporary residence. The good news is that the Welsh-born chanteuse manages to maintain the quality control at a similarly high standard throughout most of this, her third album.
While the droning ‘High Marks’ is a little too difficult and jazz-inflected for my tastes, ‘Beautiful Day’ is its polar opposite, sashaying from your speakers, flashing easy smiles and spreading warm summery vibes towards everyone within earshot, even on chilly autumn evenings. The upbeat ‘Shaking The Disease’ is among the finest things Katell has ever written: a genuinely infectious melody that is guaranteed to get even the most uptight toe tapping.
The epic ‘On Yer Way’ is incredibly beautiful, beginning as a simple ballad, with just the power of Katell’s voice and a guitar holding the listener rapt, as the singer’s humanitarian side rises to the fore. Then, just when you think you can put the song in the box marked ‘Worthy Folk Music’, things get well and truly fuzzed up with a relentless blast of caterwauling guitar driving the song to a distorted finale. Katell remains true to her folk roots, however, on the hilarious ‘Brother Of The Brush’, which could be an out-take from the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, as well as on the campfire singalong of ‘Seven League Boots’.
The mesmerising ‘Little Joe’ is disarmingly brilliant, with Katell listing a potential lover’s faults, and they’re many, for a song that is either the epitome of irony or an exercise in blind adoration: “I love you cos you’re stupider than those other guys...unadorned by the gardens of your intellect”.
An unusually perceptive lyricist, a fine vocalist and an intriguing performer, with a healthy dosage of idiosyncrasy added into the equation, Katell Keinig refuses to be pigeonholed into any folk brigade and High July duly defies categorisation – apart from ‘Never Boring and Frequently Brilliant’.