The third album from West Midlands singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy continues her musical development with an increasing variety of styles and arrangements for her delicate, tuneful and lyrically intelligent music

DELICATE, TUNEFUL & INTELLIGENT

These Frightening Machines is the third album from West Midlands singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy, and it continues her musical development with an increasing variety of styles and arrangements for her delicate, tuneful and lyrically intelligent music.

Her debut album five years ago, The Eternal Rocks Beneath, was very much in the “solo acoustic gal” model, with self-penned folk songs drawing heavily on her training in literature laced with references to classical mythology. 2024’s The Pendulum Swing introduced more diverse instrumentation, but with this new record Priddy feels much more confident in her use of a band.

While this album moves firmly away from the pure “folk” genre, there are still a few classical references remaining in the lyrics. Priddy spent much of last year supporting Suzanne Vega on tour, and it was a natural combination which this record re-enforces – fans of Vega will find much to like here.

These Frightening Machines kicks off with perhaps its strongest track, Matches, about the fiery fate of supposed witches. The core band of producer and arranger Rob Ellis, engineer Patrick Pearson and Ben Christophers strike up a complex driving rhythm while Priddy warns “Don’t they know that we have matches too?”.

INTRICATE AND SOMEWHAT OMINOUS

The title track is a delicate heartfelt song about human frailty which could have featured in her early albums, but Sirius’ shuffling rhythm is definitely part of her new soft-folk-rock idiom, with a poppy hook line. Hurricane re-enforces the shift with its latin feel, burbling electric piano and trumpet solo. Kirsty MacColl’s Tropical Brainstorm is called to mind.

Priddy is joined by American singer-songwriter Torres on Madeleine bemoaning the lot of a female artist (“It’s an art how they keep our names apart, but stick us on a bill with 20 men who play guitar’) and featuring Maddie Cutter’s delicate cello.

No Katherine Priddy album would be complete without a classical reference, here it’s Atlas, although whether the song is directly referring to the Titan or simply the metaphor of taking the world’s weight on your shoulders is not clear. A Matter of Time features intricate and somewhat ominous percussion as Priddy sings poetically about “another short life there in your eyes”.

I’m Always Willing is a co-write with George Boomsma, who she also worked with on The Pendulum Swing; the song is a duet with Grammy-nominated Richard Walters and has an Americana swing thanks to Boomsma’s mandolin and guitar.

The album ends quietly with Could This Be Enough’s multitracked vocals finishing with unaccompanied words about an imperfect love affair “If only we were evergreen, instead of August’s fever dream”.

CONTINUING PROGRESSION

The continuing musical development in this record is welcome, and producer Rob Ellis has done well to take songs which were presumably mostly written on a solo acoustic guitar and enhance and adapt them to a broader soundscape.

Nothing gets above a medium pace however, and you do sometimes wish that given a band to play with that some of the songs could have been let a bit more off the leash – perhaps that’s something we can look forward to with the next steps of Katherine’s career.

These Frightening Machines is a continuing progression and takes her firmly into the singer-songwriter genre, alongside the likes of Kathryn Williams and indeed Suzanne Vega. Its catchy tunes and intelligent lyrics will hopefully bring her mainstream success.

She is touring the album through April and May – see her website for details. Check out the video for Hurricane below.

Artist: Website

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