EP Review : Without Willow – Without Willow

For anyone who’ve been to the Emerald Isle will know it as a country of breathtaking scenery and ancient mystery, full of welcoming people and great craic.

Without Willow have seemingly been able to distill all this beauty and love into their self-titled EP and it’s surely a thing of wonder.

Based in County Donegal on the north west coast, the duo of Karen Kelly and Simon McCafferty have dug deep and produced something that has influences of troubadour Damien Rice and supergroup Fleetwood Mac woven throughout it but shot through with very much their own identity.

The whole is exquisite, the performances glorious, the writing brilliant and the voices clear and characterful, from Kelly’s Americana-soaked tones to those of McCafferty’s more modern folk timbre and beyond.

Here guitars are delicately and deftly picked whilst strings swell and the singers mesh like they were born for this one purpose, each perfectly complimenting each other.

‘Leave this Way you came’ does have that aforementioned Mac vibe about it and mixes in a more folky hue that brings its specific flavour and the shuffling beat of ‘Sail My Direction’ is utterly irresistible.

Equally impressive, ‘Your Ghost’ is an achingly beautiful song that’s both expansive and atmospheric as you can image the mist slowly clearing from the bright, fresh fields of a Spring morning as the sun warms the air, still leaving the lingering chilling tendrils until they fade.

The equally cinematic, but more uptempo ‘The Heather Field’ closes, the duo wringing every last drop of resistance out of the listener, forcing them to just surrender their all to the luminescent splendour of the music. Life affirming and unutterably wonderful, Without Willow are perfection.

Review by Paul Monkhouse