Big Machine

Bold, brassy and bendy, Eliza Carthy's Big Machine is a monster of an album, and she has a monster of an 11-piece band with her – including Sam Sweeney, Lucy Farrell, Saul Rose, Beth Porter and Barney Stradling. There are big choruses, big songs and plenty of freewheeling brass, spiky guitars, soaring strings and sharp contrasts in these bold settings of broadside ballads from Chetham's Library in Manchester – songs such as ‘Devil in the Woman’, the album opener ‘Fade and Fall (Not Love)’ and ‘The Sea’. Ewan MacColl's radio ballad ‘The Fitter's Song’ is the source of the album's title, while the self-penned ‘You Know Me’ has MC Dizraeli mumbling subliminally under Carthy's timely take on how to welcome people from distant (or not so distant) shores. The traditional ballad ‘I Wish That the Wars Were All Over’ features guest Damien Dempsey and dates back to the 1700s. It is beautiful and affecting, driven by subtle percussion, layered vocals and some lovely fiddle work. Big Machine resets Carthy's career; it's a grand statement at a time of considerable turmoil and change.