Fact #64760

The woman who made her name in 1986 with a bunch of spunky songs recorded live onto a Sony Walkman has released consistently top-notch albums ever since, and here’s another. As always, there’s plenty of socio-political polemic but, like Billy Bragg, Shocked sweetens her pills with healthy doses of big tunes, lyrical wit and vibrantly enthusiastic delivery. As a result, she imparts an engagingly live feel to every track even though multi-instrumentalist and co-composer Devin Powers is clearly over-dubbed on several cuts. Best of all, though, is the feeling that Michelle Shocked remains as excited about making music now as she was two decades ago.
(Source : review by Johnny Black, first published in Hi Fi News.)