Essex songstress Kate Walsh has known some bad men in her time. And thank goodness for that, say I. For without her misadventures in love we would never have had the marvellous Light & Dark. The compost heap of her spoiled relationships proves fertile ground for the songwriter.
However, Walsh is nothing if not a heroic romantic and a firm believer in the old maxim that it’s better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all. The closing ‘Gather My Strength’ finds her unwavering in her devotion as she declares: “I need to bring him my love/ ‘Cause there’s no other love like ours”. “I’ll just have to accept/ That I’m easily bowled over” she confides on ‘Trying’, which articulates how infatuation can flood the senses, making otherwise reasonable people give in to foolish impulses, .
When she reminds us of other female singer-songwriters, it’s always artists of distinction, be it Jenny Lewis on ‘June Last Year’, Nina Persson [in her A Camp guise] on ‘Be Mine’, or Kate Bush on ‘I Cling On For Dear Life’. With its exquisite arrangements and little dabs of invention, Light & Dark marks a definite step-up from Walsh’s excellent second album, Tim’s House. Let’s just hope she continues consorting with wrong ‘uns and progressing as impressively.