Reviewed by Paul Poulton

These are Julia's songs but it's not always the Derbyshire-based songwriter singing them. "Magnificat" sung by Amanda Latham cuts some ice, it has the flavour of a stage musical and Amanda sings it like she means it, with edge and backbone. Julia's voice has more of a folk flavour, pictures of Judith Durham pop into my mind when I listen to it. There is a moodiness about the material, which isn't necessarily a gloomy thing, more like that feeling you get when it starts to get dark at night. What doesn't work too well is the production, the electric guitars sound old-fashioned rather than retro, the music doesn't groove in a noughties way, the percussion lurches, the vocals are sometimes woolly. There are some ideas that work but they are outweighed by the ideas that don't. Julia has a bash at bringing something interesting about the Christmas story that we haven't already heard and succeeds, telling us that Joseph was chosen to play a father's part, God knowing that he had a father's heart. Yeah that's a good point and nicely rhymed.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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