The songs of Kirsten Adamson make for the sort of sweet and sour dream you will not want to wake from.
Release Date : 26th September 2025
Label : Self-Released
Format : CD / Vinyl / Digital
AN EXQUISITE BALANCE
The first thing that leaps out from this keenly anticipated record is the exquisite balance between the instrumentation and the vocals. Sounding this good, the songs beg to be as good, it swiftly becoming apparent that they are. The step up from 2023’s Landing Place is immense, the set reeking of the confidence that comes with experience, of songs built around a well honed band, who appear to know these tunes backwards. You could bat for hours between whether this is down to the pin drop production, from erstwhile Hanging Star, Joe Harvey-Whyte, or to the clout of the contributing musicians, but ultimately it is the songs, it’s always the songs.
So what about the songs? All these songs drip with heartfelt feelings, slotting and segueing together like a suite, surely the result of Adamson now working mainly with the same writing partner. Landing Place had been a mix of her own compositions and those co-written with a number of different, if still all band associated, individuals. Here they are predominantly written in conjunction with Jon Mackenzie, with that arrangement seeming to tighten up any sense of variance between the songs.
DOLLYISMS DIALLED DOWN
The first of these is My Life, which starts with the glacial crystalline jangle of Mackenzie’s guitar, with an underlay of piano coming in from Fred Abbott. Adamson is quiet, and in a reflective mood for this one. The Dollyisms, referred often to in her reviews, are dialled down and this is a fine start. Some hammond wafts in, with Richard Anderson and Scott Forsyth, bass and drums, pinning down a precise backbeat. A classic country rock construction, not a note is wasted, with the sparing harmonies arriving not a moment too soon, nor a moment too late. I don’t always catch lyrics, but I do here: “I think I wanna take a bite from every apple that’s ripe. I’m here, but when will I arrive, I am just alive learning how I can survive my life“. OK….
In The Next Life, up next, is more than a continuation in name and theme alone, having a similar guitar motif, if faster and in a different key, with a slow chug building up behind her, and, this time, more hopeful vocals. The quizzical raised eyebrows of the listener are now replaced by a broad smile, that widening as Mackenzie lets rip with some heroic salvos to herald the chorus. Check out the bass, too, mixed nice and high in the mix, if pitched low in the basement. If this were the Bangles and 1980, it would be a hit and, any which way, it could be all of those things. And I can’t let a lyric like “We can start a band with Danko on bass” go by without mention.
STEAMTRAIN SHUDDER JUDDER
No slow burn here, two tracks in and it’s already a stonker, with track three, Backseat Driver, more of the same. This little beaut of a song has myriad textures, all ripe and ready for savouring, with a veritable earworm of a hook, to say nothing of the delightfully quirky near wah-wah of a solo from Mackenzie. Get that out your ear, and you’re a better man than I. Having said, the steamtrain shudder judder of Heart Is Burning Blue is just as good and just as catchy.
All involved have really put thought into the little touches that leap out, from the nifty arpeggiating riff that slips in and out, and the background whine of Harvey-Whyte, adding steel now, for the first time. And if that, or anything thus far, has you reaching for a sick bag marked country music, tell yourself it is intelligent pop music and banish such prejudice. (Even if, of course it is both.)
Valleys And The Pines sees a step back into mellower territory, Adamson backed by rippling acoustic guitars, with harmonies coming in at just the right time to landslide your expectations. Followed swiftly by some of the more gorgeous string arrangements you’ll hear this year, it is almost shocking how transformative this track is to the record. Full full marks to Eli Kendall for the arrangement and to Clementine Brown and Maddy Hamilton for the strings, but even more to Adamson for the delicate rapier her vocal provides.
CHIMING GUITARS AND BRAVE HOPE
I don’t know about you, but I needed a lie-down after that one, relieved that The Heart offers only the need for a slow return to upright, a song with a distinct Tom Petty flavour about it. Take note, yes again, for the interplay between Mackenzie, Anderson and Forsyth, the three core Tanagers, at least based on live performances, if not forgetting Adamson’s own acoustic. The ghost of a Petty adjacent figure then occupies Whenever You’re Around, that of Lefty Wilbury, aka Roy Orbison, all chiming guitars and brave hope mixed with despair. Adamson adds double tracked backing vocals and, by the end, she has you convinced to the good.
If that left you up, the poignant nostalgia of Perfume won’t, a beseech from the heart. Mackenzie and Harvey-Whyte lay down competing textures of sadness, the rhythm section a slow walk into desperation. “I could be happy, I could be free“, and you really, really want to believe her. The first song written without Mackenzie, it is a co-write with Dave Burn, Adamson’s partner in one of her other projects, The Marriage. (As opposed to the marriage.)
He also provides some of the backing vocals across the record. River Someday tries to lift the mood with some merseybeat guitar figures, but, with Abbott adding a backdrop of organ to Forsyth’s clip-clop beat, hope may yet be premature. The longest song here, written with William Douglas, or Willie Dug, of Edinburgh’s Cosmic Gents, and, at a little over five minutes, it takes you from one brink to another, never throwing in the towel, ahead a very Eagle-y race for the border.
A COMPELLING PIECE OF WORK
Camden In The Rain brings Mackenzie and Burns back into the writing booth. Clearly each were missing home, as this one weeps almost too freely from start to finish, a low key scatter of notes, that is a step away from sentimentality, a notion otherwise unfamiliar to the overlying frames of reference. It takes the scaffolding Harvey-Whyte has constructed to give it the gravitas otherwise lacking. Which leaves only room for the title track, where old mucker, Dean Owens, who produced her last album, gets a shared writing credit with the singer. Again, and annoyingly, this too runs the risk of saccharine overload, with hints of Time After Time slipping into the chorus, however gainfully Abbott and Harvey-Whyte try to disguise it.
Misgivings aside around the final two tracks, this remains a compelling piece of work. In any other setting, each would stand sufficiently proud, but it is just that the competition before them is set so high. Arguably she could sing such fare in her sleep, but it is in the challenge of the more upfront jangle of the other songs that works her voice to the best. The whole can only do her reputation good and have reviewers like me neglecting to mention her late father, Stuart Adamson, of Big Country and the Skids. Which I nearly managed to do, the mention merely to prompt those so far curious into assertive action.
She’s on tour soon, will you be there?
Meanwhile, here’s the opening track from Dreamviewer:
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