Stephen Morris reviews Cheltenham singer Sam Holmes

By Stephen Morris
Website contributor

Sam Holmes has been writing and performing for over 15 years

Sam Holmes has long been a favourite of this particular writer.

Since her eponymous debut EP in 2004, the prospect of new material from this exceptional singer and songwriter has always been welcomed with keen anticipation.

A follow up to Sam Holmes came in 2008 with the advent of a second extended player.

There have also been much appreciated collaborations with electronica-experimentalist duo Sundae Club over the years.

The duo recruited her for vocal duties on 2004's Angel's in the Sky from the Technostalgia album.

More recently Holmes was called back into service for this year's Thinking of You cover which can be found on the duo's Seasides album where you will also find a remix of Holmes' heartbreaking Falling Down.

But we have had to wait some time now for a whole album of Sam Holmes' songs to become available.

Fortunately, that time has now come. In truth, Stories to Tell is not entirely new.

With the release of a full album, Stories to Tell provides the listener with enough time to fully savour the magical quality of Sam Holmes' songs. Stephen Morris

Seven of the twelve songs featured on this record can be found on the two aforementioned EPs.

One of the five remaining songs is older still.

The Drowned Lover is a traditional folk song dating back to the seventeenth century.

The age or previous availability of these songs should not concern us.

It's handy to have all of these songs gathered together in one place and it gives those who have missed previous musical gems like Charlie, Solid Ground and Fool for Love a chance to catch up.

Holmes' songs are things of sheer beauty, considering a range of thoughts and feelings about love, lost love and friendship.

The album's title track, for example, takes the theme of the heart's fragility and frailty: "I warned you, don't play with my heart 'cos it'll only crumble".

SAM HOLMES Lives in Cheltenham Exposed to wide range of music by her father Writing and performing for over 15 years Musical heroes include Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Amy McDonald Played to more than 20,000 people in 2006 at Fairport Convention's Cropredy festival

Meanwhile, Parade, one of the newer songs on the album takes on a more ambivalent attitude towards love and romance: "It's not that I don't like sleeping on my own/I'd just rather sleep with you."

In between these two extremes can be found love songs such as Solid Ground and On My Mind.

But even in these songs there is a sense of delicacy - a suggestion that heartbreak may be just a moment away.

The subtext throughout the whole album should be read as "handle with care - lots of it".

Even the most upbeat of songs, Fool for Love is filled with allusions to weakness and self doubt - possibly even self loathing.

And so the inclusion of a centuries old folk song seems entirely apt - both stylistically and thematically.

The Drowned Lover is a song of mourning for a loved one.

A young woman is so overcome with grief for her drowned sailor that she too dies.

It's the sort of miserable plot line that Thomas Hardy would have lapped up for one of his novels.

Miserable, certainly, but poignant and altogether beautiful.

'Intimate and beautiful'

Elsewhere, the songs take on themes beyond the romantic.

Charlie is a song of encouragement to a troubled friend: "from the pain of one that I knew/I see you for what you are… I see the good in you."

At the other end of the spectrum, Spaces is a song filled with bitter acrimony ("You have a funny way of saying all the wrong words in all the wrong spaces") against a deceptively gentle melody.

Musically, this is singer/song writing at its best, drawing on influences such as Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake.

The latter's presence can be felt particularly on the cello heavy Saving Grace.

For more contemporary comparisons you may wish to turn to Kathryn Williams who shares a similar insight and lightness of touch to Holmes.

With the release of a full album, Stories to Tell provides the listener with enough time to fully savour the magical quality of Sam Holmes' songs.

This is music at its most intimate and beautiful: a must for anyone who has loved, lost or never felt loved at all.