Katey Brooks - Revolute (31/05/19)
Artist: Katey Brooks
Release Date: 31st May, 2019
Genre: Singer-Songwriter, Soul, Blues, Rock, Country, Gospel
Record Label: True Speaker Music / Robar Music
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.kateybrooks.com/
There is a saying that ‘good things come to those that wait’., Born out of hardship, frustration and disappointment Katey has created a piece of music magic. Blending folk, blues, soul, rock, country and gospel, Katey’s new debut album positively sparkles with creativity and outstanding quality music. ‘Revolute’ is a reflective and honest labour of love, full of heart and soul created by a singer-songwriter who deserves to be heard. The album’s title ‘Revolute’ is a old word from the 14th century carring the meaning ‘to revolve’ or be ‘rolled back’.
The revelation is that every song is saving Katey Brooks, too. “For as long as I can remember, singing has been my way of getting out what I need to say,” reflects the Bristol-born singer-songwriter. “I guess I’m lucky that I have songs.” After her early years as a best-kept secret, this rising songwriter’s media acclaim, celebrity endorsers and growing army of fans have brought her to an irresistible tipping-point.
For better or worse, it’s hard to imagine a songwriter with a deeper well of life experience to spill onto her lyric-sheet. Katey’s troubled childhood in a religious cult, her debilitating illness in her twenties and the shattering loss of her mother and best friend: all were blows that might have swallowed up a lesser character. But music was the balm, and it was always made on her terms evidenced by Katey’s early decision to reject a place at the star-making BRIT School and walk her own path.
First steps on Bristol’s open-mic scene pricked up ears. Show-stealing performances at Glastonbury, WOMAD and the Paralympics spread the word. Top-dollar recording sessions with Brian May, Bill Wyman, Paloma Faith and Joss Stone were offset by guitar-slinging gigs in squats, dive-bars and the occupied West Bank, where raw songs were born amongst the rubble.
Now, following up 2016’s acclaimed ‘I Fought Lovers’ EP, all of Katey’s scars and redemption are poured undiluted into the new material of ‘Revolute’. Written and self-produced by Katey herself with a beautiful and intimate mix from Paul Quinn, these eleven songs run the gamut of genre, but are bound together by their emotional honesty.
The album opens with the wonderful anthemic gospel-soul ‘Never Gonna Let Her Go’. A song of love and redemption full of sweeping harmonies, great guitar basslines and driving percussion with Katey’s vocals soaring over it all. It sees her kicks out defiantly against the past shamings for her sexuality. Super production and arrangements too. Very classy.
‘All Of Me’ is a wrench of a breakup ballad, pairing sparse guitar with intimate vocals, and slow-burning to a gospel-flavoured conclusion. ‘We The People’ offers a moody stomp and a salute to a lover who’s moved on, while ‘Golden Gun’ is a glowering standout, with choppy guitars and a lyric full of emotional violence.
Already released as a single to blanket acclaim, ‘In Your Arms’ is an intimate moment, with Katey’s almost-operatic voice and shimmering guitar locked in unison. ‘The Sweetest Things’ has folky fingerpicking and a nakedly honest vocal that reminds us that “sometimes the sweetest things were meant to pass you by”. And on an album of personal truths, Katey isn’t afraid to turn her observational powers on the social landscape, with the impassioned soul of ‘Burn It Down’ reminding women in the #MeToo era that victimhood is not their fault.
‘Jeremiah’ is a beautiful piano-led ballad that sails to the stars, while ‘Call Out’ is a stunning moment of quiet defiance (“Don’t let anybody take you down”). Even as the album plays out, there’s no let-up in emotional intensity. ‘In Light Of You’ combines ethereal guitar with treasured memories of a departed loved one – then throws a curveball as it breaks into a double-time groove. Finally, there’s traditional standard ‘Trouble So Hard’, here utterly owned by Katey, with ghostly chords and a vocal that never stops building.
Katey comments “Completing these tracks is not only the closure of a difficult chapter for me,” she says, “but the exciting beginning of something new, with my freedom finally found…”
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