My first awareness of Kathryn Williams ‘Night Drives’ was noticing someone online declaring it ‘a classic’. That kind of fanfare can prejudice you against a release, is it possible to announce something ‘classic’ immediately on its release? I recall Shindig! Magazine declaring an album by the Lemon Twigs, roughly around 2017, as a surefire album of the year contender in January and it so obviously was not that and I do not recall giving the Twigs much listening time thereafter. That said, I have always liked Kathryn and I had to give her new album a listen. First impressions were good, but I still wondered if the hype was necessary. However, for the second six months of this year it has really become one of those albums I frequently return to, these are songs that open up over the course of multiple listens. They have depth and the writing is of such a high standard that it merits such lofty accolades. It may have had something to do with the production of Ed Harcourt, but I would assume that it is more to do with the ever-evolving musical grain of Kathryn Williams as this does indeed sound like a modern baroque-pop masterpiece.

So many of my favourite albums have a theme, a concept or a tone and mood that stitch the songs together, making them work as a set in which everything down to the sequencing is placed deliberately for maximum impact. So it is with ‘Night Drives’, all these recordings have a tangible sense of the nocturnal, the echoes of darkness. They also seem to resonate in your brain just as night voices do when we have the business of living and relationships rattling through our mind in those black, silent midnight hours. With the Beatle-like mellotron sounds and melodies that navigate major/minor contortions, every song is a mini audio symphony. At the core of every track is a lushly composed song that has multiple sonic levels, unexpected bursts of unsettling noise or a wallpapering of strings and orchestral serenity. Williams is thought of as a folk singer because of the strong acoustic, singer-songwriter thread to her sound, but this is not really what she does. She has produced, for many years now, music that references the styles of great British pop songs and ballads, with a melancholic heart and an ear for beauty that is uniquely hers.

‘Radioactive’ is an essential example of her strengths, built around a throbbing pulse of a riff, she is serenading someone at the dawn of the day, continuing to describe how her subject instigated the writing of a song, thinking of it as song writers do as being snatched from the ether. Next her head is in the clouds, dreaming of all the people around and how they “captured me with all their hearts”. Kathryn becomes submerged in this dream world, the subconscious tangents of our minds where music finds its way into our souls and she is hoping her new song connects on this level too, all the while the production of the tune has landed with a thumping beat and undeniable weight. It is, as so much of Kathryn’s work is, a deep dish of a piece that pays in full to those investing in repeated listens. ‘Moon Karaoke’ has a similar air of a song that must have been around for years, it feels so right. The chorus begins “everyone’s having fun but me” before a grand sweep of orchestral lushness enters the scene, playing like a could-be national anthem for introverts as it continues “I’m just trying to be me”. Maybe Kathryn sees herself as an introvert, she certainly comes across that way at times, but I’d argue she is more of an introvex; Kathryn Williams music presents itself with the confidence and assuredness of a master and this album is one of her finest.

Buy a vinyl copy of Night Drives here: https://www.discogs.com/release/24259688-Kathryn-Williams-Night-Drives