Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Viv Neville hails from County Durham and during her music college studies experimented with a number of different musical styles but became captivated by Celtic music. Coupling that passion with a fascination for Celtic church history and spirituality, Viv's musical journeys have led her here to create this four track EP, released on the UK's longest running independent Christian label Plankton. The title cut has some elements normally associated with easy listening music - maybe it's the panpipe sounds! Two of the songs are penned with Celtic poet Cindy L Spear who has also collaborated with Iona in the past. It's true that lyrically these songs have a Celtic flavour to them but musically this doesn't always come through. It may be the programmed instruments that don't work here. In addition, Neville's voice doesn't always cut it in a Celtic diva fashion so there are times when this isn't working as well as it should. Viv has done well to get a debut release out but for future projects, both instrumentation and voice need some more production expertise to make the recording work.

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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