Wishing Tree - Carnival Of Souls

An obscure one-off project featuring singer Hannah Stobart and Marillion's guitarist Steve Rothery. This follows the tradition of guitarists discovering high-voiced female vocalists, as Dave Gilmour gave Kate Bush a leg up into the business. Stobart is no new Kate Bush, but this record does has its moments. The style is a combination of folky acoustic, and easy-listening soft rock. Rothery does enough of his familiar licks and spangly noises (most noticeably at the very start of the album) for this to be interesting to Marillion fans.

The acoustic songs like "Starfish" and "Fire-Bright" are sung with a pleasing crystal-clear tone, bringing to mind All About Eve. The more up-beat stuff is in that soft rock style that is often called insipid and compared to Fleetwood Mac. There's just enough decent, earnestly performed tunes like "Nightwater" to save it from ultimate blandness. But overall this album is largely lightweight stuff, not spectacularly original. Its interesting moments are too infrequent for me to recommend it, other than to Marillion collectors.

April 25, 2004

5 out of 10

see also...

• All About Eve - All About Eve

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