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2010 heralds the return of Sandi Thom, as she presents her new album to the world as well as a new style. Released via her own record label (Guardian Angels), Thom retains creative freedom allowing her to make an album that reflect who she is. For Merchants & Thieves, the albums takes on a blues/rock style.
The opening track (Maggie McCall) gets the album underway and delves straight into the new style adopted by Thom for the album. The pace is kept by the following tracks until Let It Stay, a beautiful slow tempo ballad before heading into the album title track which turns out to be a instrumental track (a first for Sandi).
From this point, the album becomes a mix of bag of tempos, kicking off with the first single from this album, This Ol’ World featuring the blues/rock guitarist and vocalist Joe Bonamassa before taking the tempo down slightly for The Sadness. Heart of Stone brings it back up with what has a highlight of the album. Ghost Town hails another first in which Sandi and backing vocalist Lindsey Clearly sing the track acapella, giving it an appropriate haunting feel. Belly Of The Blues is a track that could have either started or finished the album and settles the album beautifully.
Looking back at what Sandi Thom has done before, there is a feeling that this album is more of what she has been wanting to do and by releasing it on her own label, that is exactly what she has achieved. The style and variation in songs suits her voice and has showcased what she really can achieve and makes for a well rounded album. It is an album of firsts: first release on her own label, first blues/rock inspired album, first instrumental and a capella tracks. The difficulty lies in whether or not that the general music public can put aside it’s pre-conceived ideas regarding her music and realise that she is more than a one track pony and that there is much more that we haven’t seen and quite possibly yet to see.
Rating: 5/5
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