Helen Boulding - Calling All Angels

As ‘Be With Me’, the opening track from Helen Boulding’s newest album ‘Calling All Angels’ begins, it sounds like a lovely, delicate piece of singer-songwriter brilliance, hopefully representative of the rest of the album. But then something strange happens. It gets all electro, and neither Boulding nor her album know how to combine the two.

‘The Innocents’ sounds like the music that would accompany an energetic rom-com montage, in which the main female character realises how powerful she is. Unfortunately, much like the film it would fit with, the song rings slightly false.

There are highlights; the intimate ‘Crooked Tooth’ early on in the album is a sickly sweet ditty with bite behind its lyrics. Boulding’s vocals certainly suit the style she’s chosen, but with influences like Bat For Lashes pervading the sound, it feels like she’s wedged something extra in that just doesn’t quite fit. So why should you listen to Boulding over Bat For Lashes?

Well, ‘Jerusalem’, religious imagery aside, is a rollicking song, and evidence of the electro-beats finally fitting in somewhere. The dramatic sounds don’t exactly keep up in ‘Something To Believe In’, but the sparse soundscape is equally powerful and the strings are more than welcome, both here and in the delicate ‘Long Time Coming’. There are definite highlights to this album, but few of them have the same bounce of the songs that Boulding probably intended to be favourites. As the song says, “It’s so easy, when it’s right”. It’s a shame Boulding couldn’t take her own advice and keep things simple.

Remember that rom-com metaphor from before? Well, it comes back in the hollow ‘Blown Away’, a song that won’t blow you away, but feels very much like the end of something. Maybe the part of the film where the female lead realises who she should be with and passionately kisses her man? It’s strange, then, that the song comes little over half-way through ‘Calling All Angels’. It’s as if the album’s too long to sustain its own energy; listening to it all in one go is almost impossible, your ears finding better things to do.

Helen Boulding is from Sheffield, originally. The musical talent that comes from simply being born there is evident in her lyrics and soft voice, but ‘Calling All Angels’ is a disappointment when you consider just how much better it could have been with less fiddling around.