Bring Back Home

The Somerset singer's sixth album comprises 12 original songs and two traditional ballads, with her band including Gigspanner's Peter Knight on fiddle and vocals, guitarist Lukas Drinkwater, cellist Lee Cuff, accordionist Alex Cumming, and Jon Dyer on flute and whistle. The original songs draw much of their imagery from the poetry of the folk tradition. For example, the opener, ‘Sisters Three’, expands on the good-sister-bad-sister archetype by adding another, the sister with no heart at all. The lyrics sprout rather wild allegorical growths – an oak tree swallows the good-hearted child, while her two remaining sisters are left to engage in a battle to the death from its branches.

Hardy's songs are clearly drawn from life – from the people she has known and from her own difficult passage to adulthood, from teenage foster care, homelessness in Ireland and a teenage pregnancy, to self determination and recovery through music. The two traditional ballads on the album, ‘Claudy Banks’ and ‘Waters of Tyne’, both sit well alongside her own works, which is no easy feat. In Bring Back Home, there's a lot of living, a lot of passion, and a lot of folk inspiration at play.