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Nov 17, 2016Whether stark and menacing, grief-laden or simply plain daft, Lodestar is a triumph of storytelling and sound.
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The WireDec 21, 2016What makes Lodestar a genuine progression from what has gone before--is the sinking and deepening of her voice. It is still neutral enough to act as the conduit it always has done, but the milkmaid’s lilt has been transformed into a maven’s burden. [Dec 2016, p.55]
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Dec 5, 2016She embraces their words, often of death and reminiscence on youth, as if they’d come from deep within herself. It is, after 38 years, a fine reminder of her vital place in British musical tradition, as the essential elder stateswoman of folk.
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Nov 21, 2016Lodestar is true to Collins' roots.
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Q MagazineNov 15, 2016Mortality hangs heavy over this music, but Collins, ultimately, makes it deathless. [Jan 2017, p.107]
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Nov 8, 2016That Lodestar exists at all feels like a minor miracle. That it is so exquisitely done is a small blessing on top.
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Nov 4, 2016Lodestar sees Shirley Collins creating a boundary-pushing, exhilarating work by doing nothing other than what she does best: reanimating the folk songs of Britain with all the respect and veneration she feels for them.
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Nov 3, 2016The music exceeds expectation and while this understandably isn’t her best album, it looks at the current trend for reformations and reduces them to ash.
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Nov 3, 2016The album isn't a comeback but a continuum, and a welcome return from a true oracle of traditional song.
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Nov 2, 2016Collins herself brings a demotic charm to whatever she sings.
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MojoOct 31, 2016This is a remarkably strong set. [Dec 2016, p.88]
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UncutOct 31, 2016As ever it's Collins' wonderfully unfussy voice that is the star. [Dec 2016, p.26]
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Oct 31, 2016The mood is austere, studded by encounters with mortality, but the accompaniments from Oysterband’s Ian Kearey are full of subtlety and surprise, with delicate guitars and blasts of squeezebox. A late-flowering triumph.
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MagnetDec 15, 2016What's striking is how her voice, which once epitomized the prototypical fair young maiden, remains just as compellingly austere. [No. 138, p.55]
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Oct 31, 2016This should all be heavier going than it is: that it isn’t is at least partly down to the arrangements, which are largely based around acoustic guitar and subtly effective throughout. Moreover, they fit Collins’ voice, which has weathered considerably in the years she kept silent. But the new patina suits her, and the material.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 5
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Mixed: 0 out of 5
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Negative: 2 out of 5
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Jan 15, 2017
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Jan 15, 2017