Shining In The Half Light is the third proper studio album from Bristol-based singer songwriter,
Elles Bailey. Since self-releasing Wildfire, her 2017 debut album, she has been winning over listeners and DJs with her big, throaty, smoky, singing voice and original songs drenched in blues, roots rock and Americana. 2019's Road I Call Home was recorded in Nashville with studio ringers. It won the Album of the Year prize at British Blues Awards and another for Artist of the Year. During the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, she did streaming concerts and digitally issued the covers collection, Ain’t Nothing But in 2021; it garnered a second Artist of the Year award.
Shining In The Half Light was recorded over 14 months in a Devonstudio with producer
Dan Weller (
SikTh,
Enter Shikari) and her road band – guitarist
Joe Wilkins, bassist
Matthew Waer, keyboardist Johnny Henderson and drummer Matthew Jones. For weight and textural dimension, she also added a trio of gospel singers in Izo Fitzroy, Andrusilla Moseley, and
Jade Elliot. Pregnant for most of the recording process, she completed it days before giving birth to her first child -- she listened to final mixes in the hospital!
Opener "Cheaters and Liars" is saturated in crunchy blues rock. Roaring, ringing guitars offer a swampy hook.
Bailey details the suffering of artists during the pandemic while scorning the privileged who refused help. "The Game" weds blues to roughly polished 21st century country rock. Its raw groove emanates from Henderson's roaring B-3 framing
Wilkins' biting
R.L. Burnside-esque riff. Handclaps and backing chorus buoy
Bailey's love torn lyrics. "Stones" is slow, raunchy blues fueled by wrangling slide guitars, B-3, and popping tom toms.
Bailey inhabits her exhortation to self reflection. As the vocalists surround her, she and
Wilkins push each other to make the song an anthem. In the resonant, soul-drenched love song, "Colours Start To Run," her interplay with the her singners is breathtaking. The grain in her voice drips with resolve, commitment, and passion. Single "Sunshine City" is a grooving choogler driven by a nasty,
ZZ Top-esque power riff, swampy drums, and a driving bassline around a swelling B-3.
Bailey meets the band's charge then ups the ante with, "We believe in hell/ We've been raising Cane/Nothing lasts forever, nothing comes for free/But if this is trouble, well it feels good to me…." "Halfway House" is a painful breakup song that seamlessly and powerfully melds rootsy Americana and country gospel. "Riding Out The Storm," is an easy, summery, paean to self-determination and romantic commitment, fueled by an irresistible R&B vocal hook. The growth, taste, and savvy
Bailey displays throughout
Shining In The Half Light is abundant. She channels her favorite sounds,, remakes and remodels them, and gives herself completely over in each lyric. These fine new songs are housed beautifully in
Weller's production, the performances by
Bailey, her band, and singers. They are so inspiring, they often border on revelatory. ~ Thom Jurek