Right, that's enough book-reviewing, CD-R burning, monitor-bashing and lyric-analysing. It's back to the gramophone for me.....

WHO'S THIS THEN?
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It's Thea Gilmore, a 26 year old singer and songwriter from Oxfordshire. She's been peddling her particularly beguiling brand of thoughtful acoustic pop since around 1997. Rules For Jokers is her third album, from 2001, and rates as possibly the finest female album I've heard for ages.

THE TRACKS
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GIven that Ms GIlmore is certainly a wordy and literate songwriter, I've included my ususal track descriptions and marks out of five, along with a best line section. Enjoy.

**1. Apparition No.12 (2:43)**
A super start to the album with Thea strumming along unaccompanied in an uptempo manner. Some great lyrics are heard throughout this short track and the acoustic guitar is by turns clever and a pleasure to listen to.
Mark: 4/5
Best line: "I held the future up to a looking glass/ it bears a striking resemblance to the embers of the past"

**2. Holding Your Hand (3:44)**
Another acoustic track which really doesn't set the theme for this varied album. "I'm gonna haunt you" Thea sings throughout, and by her soft but insistent voice, you know that this could be a scary thought. I'm not the biggest fan of slow songs, but there's a diference between schmaltz and beauty. And this has got the latter in spades.
Mark: 4/5
Best line: "On every knife edge, every trip on every needle tip, I'll be holding your hand"

**3. This GIrl Is Taking Bets (3:31)**
This girl can also rock, but not in the heavy guitar sense. More in the traditional bluesy way of things. It's a storming, thumping track that's fast in pace but sensible in execution. Her sweet voice rises for the chorus and all the verses feature some cracking couplets. The best part of the song is when the music dies away leaving just a hi hat and slide guitar to accompany Thea through the 3rd verse. Best track so far.
Mark: 5/5
Best line: "This girl is the resurrection, she's the comeback/She's the absynthe and whiskey and poetry and Prozac"

**4. Saviours And All (3:41)**
A mid tempo drum and lazy Bob Dylan harmonica start this track off before the verse builds up to the ridiculously catchy chorus of "oh here it comes, here it comes freefalling". Guitars gently jangle in the background and the harmonica occasionally revisits the track. The nearest to a pop song this album produces.
Mark: 4/5
Best line: "There's a pact/Between the ozone and the tarmac"

**5. St. Luke's Summer (3:44)**
The intro see THea dispensing of percussion as she did on the earlier tracks. Her voice is semi-vocodered, addin a distant, cold feel to her usual warm delivery. This track could almost be a sea shanty and is certainly nautical in flavour with references to sailors and the high seas, but overall this is the poorest track so far. That's not to say it's not good, far from it, it's just had a hell of a quartet of predecessors to follow!
Mark: 3/5
Best line: "She got Tiffany earrings from a limejuice sailor/Rich man, poor man, tinker, retailer"

**6. The Things We Never Said (4:51)**
Again just an acoustic married to Thea's beautiful voice and well observed lyrics. I find this song a bit too long for my taste. Although I can't argue with her talent, I would have preferred one of the faster tracks to be longer than they are.
Mark: 3/5
Best line: "Im talkin to the radio because it doesn't answer back"

**7. Seen It All Before (4:13)**
A mid tempo bluesy effort, this is a great song. Thea's whispered delivery is best when singing against a percussive background. The guitars jangle again and at the bridges of the choruses they chug in a rocky manner. Thea builds up emotion throughout the song until it's virtually wobbling with passion by the end. As Andy Mack would say: great stuff.
Mark: 4/5
Best line: "This side of Birmngham's a great place to be when they finally light the match"

**8. Benzedrine (3:01)**
A fast intro with a banging guitar and deep cello, similar to some of the WOnderstuff's music from about 12 years ago, then "do it right/right/do it right" sung in a style bizarrely close to Wham's I'm Your Man! Her catchy choruses always feature the simplest lyrics. In this case it's "oh my darling, oh my darling, benzedrine". The best track so far? Yup.
Mark: 5/5
Best line: "They've got their clothes and their diet conscience but are they art?"

**9. Movie Kisses (3:23)**
Raw, looped acoustic guitar starts this tracks off as Thea sounds quite "folky" as she comes in for the first verse. The song is stop-start, musically, with Gilmore's lyrics remaining sharp throughout.
Mark: 3/5
Best line: "Let's pull the curtains back and give this love a heart attack"

**10. Take Me Home (3:13)**
Not the classic Phil Collins track from No Jacket Required, but a folky, janglethon that thrives on simple chords and notes and prefectly sung lyrics about "sweet Mary" and "holding my own Halloween". There are far better tracks on the album but this still isn't terrible.
Mark: 3/5

**11. Keep Up (2:42)**
This song has the strange position of featuring Sarah Jane Morris on backing vocals. Many people won't know her by name, but 80's kids (like me) will know her as the woman who helped the Communards out on their huge 1986 hit Don't Leave Me This Way. Sad to say, you can hardly hear her on this stop/start track. Another song revelling in simplistic beauty.
Mark: 4/5
Best line: "You'll be six feet under before you catch up with the Joneses"

**12. Saying Nothing (3:20)**
This song has got a country-ish twang all the way through. It's "lonesone" lyrics and miserable outlook are testimony of its debt to that genre, but non-country fans need not look away because it's a very strong song full of great playing and crystal-clear singing.
Mark: 4/5
Best line: "It's just you and me now/Your alibis have gone bed".

**13. Inverigo (4:16)**
The final part of the acoustic trilogy that sees the album out to its close, this is a track of fine melodic substance. Gilmore's voice is quieter and wispier than on previous tracks and this song - about the role of humankind in the world today - is a fine, understated and introspective way to end this fine, understated and introspective album!
Mark: 3/5
Best line: "There's a lunchtime radio show and the shit that they play"

THEA GILMORE DISCOGRAPHY
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Burning Dorothy (1998)
The Lipstick Conspiracies (1999)
Rules For Jokers (2001)
Songs From The Gutter (2003)
Avalanche (2003)
Loft Music (2004)

MP3s and samples: theagilmore.com

LIKE THIS? TRY THESE (or vice versa)
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If you think you may like this but aren't sure, I would liken Thea Gilmore's style to the following artists and albums:

Artist: Tanita Tikaram
Album: Ancient Heart
Year: 1988
Why: Similar, husky, folky voice and metaphorical lyrics

Artist: Joni Mitchell
Album: Blue
Year: 1976
Why: For the myriad acoustic moments that Thea does so well

Artist: Alanis Morrisette
Title: Jagged Little Pill
Year: 1995
Why: Like Alanis, she only swears when she needs to

Artist: Norah Jones
Album: Come Away With Me
Year: 2002
Why: For the quieter moments

Artist: Kate Rusby
Album: Sleepless
Year: 2000
Why: Thea's sound is a watered down version of Kate's staunch folk

OVERALL
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I can't rate this highly enough. It's Gilmore's talent and the criminal underexposure she receives that has me despairing of the current music industry. This year, she released her sixth album, Loft Music. It's arrival hardly prompted a mass fanfare of trumpets, more like a single note on a kazoo!

This album is affecting, upbeat, maudlin, clever, unpredictable (but never flash in a boring muso way), acoustic, rocking but always full of melody, whimsy and invention. It's a curious British hybrid of pop, folk and rock. Yet, above all else, it's the clever lyricism and grass roots production that win through.

I am that confident in this singer's ability and so incensed by her constant anonymity in the music industry, that if it wasn't illegal, I'd say: "leave me your postal address in my PGB and I'll burn you a copy!". But I can't, know what I mean?

Thanks for reading.

Wayne