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 Caught in the Carousel - "There will be music despite everything"
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Kelly Haigh
Country Western Star: Starring Kelly Haigh With Frances The Singing Dog
Darling Music
Kelly Haigh's Country Western Star is one of the most remarkable and idiosyncratic albums of the year. Although Haigh is clearly an acolyte of Tammy Wynette and Lorretta Lynne and Patsy Cline, there's an almost otherworldly quality to her compositions that places them somewhere wholly original and fresh. "The Fish Disaster" sounds like a chilled-out Neko Case; "Places" is loaded with twangy ambition and the cover of Carl Smiths' "Before I Met You" is deeply affecting. Haigh has a sweet and easy delivery and whether she's singing about self-immolation ("Eight-Point Suicide"), rueful revenge ("They're ALL Ugly"), or tearful regret ("I Wish You Never"), that delivery belies the song's deliciously bloody subject matter. In fact, dark as the proceedings get, Haigh always seems to have a smile on her face as she sprinkles the poison in the tea. These are murder ballads from outer space; country songs from the cosmos. Throughout the twenty-five numbers here, Frances the Dogs barks, rain falls, bells ring and Haigh croons away with nothing short of impish mastery. These songs are all bathed in a moonglow and they shimmer and shine in the night with a twinkling brilliance.
—Alex Green
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