Written by: Dave Cantrell

The spectre of a ‘long lost album’ has, as might be guessed, a sketchy legacy, spanning the gamut from the revelatory (generally pretty rare, to be honest) to the dregsy throwaway where better heads would have been wise to prevail (which they might’ve had that ka-ching sound in said heads not been lounder than the ‘know better’ instincts rumbling in their guts) but the fact that attaches to the entirety of that spectrum is the inescapable lure and intrigue of that very ‘long-lostness,’ a status that, appealing as it does to that part of the heart constantly looking to be warmed, casts the entire proposition as something of a cousin to redemption itself and as examples of that very outcome go, you’d have to walk a whole lotta musical miles to find a better illustration of it than this ‘long lost but at last released’ second solo album from former Swimming Pool Q Anne Richmond Boston.

Now, not unexpectedly, there’s a lot to unpack in that brief lede so before we proceed please indulge us a brief thumbnail background sketch that hopefully won’t require several more nails:

Past the initial demise of the Q’s – final album from the original incarnation World War Two Point Five arrived in 1989 and a superb reunion effort Royal Academy of Reality appeared in 2003 – Ms Boston wasted little time moving past that (all-too-inevitable?) development and her debut solo outing The Big House of Time arrived in 1990. Not too long after, as one does, she gathered about her a sterling, stolid assortment of guest musicians to record this follow-up that then, for reasons that escape everyone not least the artist herself, never saw light of day and has languished in the vaults seemingly forever since until, until, being ushered very recently in to that very light by the same label that released that debut (the venerable DB Records) which, by any metric, is very good news for all of us. Let’s dig in, shall we?

Pop-savvy from the jump, with a boisterous and breezy intro that for this listener immediately plucked those memory strings originally tuned by a little place called Muscle Shoals, the title track opens the gate with a kind of down home swing that manages to take the song’s inherent longing and, with no small contribution from Rob Gal’s gently stinging guitar burst, convert it into a joyous spin around the dancefloor. On that opener’s heels comes “Give In” that, I have to admit, carries about its shoulders an echoing tinge of 70s rockness that tends to seduce yours truly despite his post-punk pedigree and y’know what? It felt great, trust me. That said, onward we traipse.

There’s “Bottle of Sleep” (great title or what?) that pitches in to an atmospheric groove truly worthy of the word. There’s “Gone” that begins life rather gently before seamlessly morphing into a powerfully poignant ballad of loss and lament that can not be more clearly encapsulated than in the repeated refrain what can I do / to bring my brother back? Rendered a tad breathless, we move on.

In that track’s, um, wake comes “Speedboat’s Wake,” at five minutes the album’s longest and perhaps the singularly most representative of this album’s strength not least, we hasten to (finally?) mention, as found in Ms Boston’s voice, an instrument that’s somehow as pellucid as it is powerful as it is vulnerable which is to say that, in league with Gal’s production, presents as the proverbially potent ‘textbook example’ of the creative strength we’re presented with here. More? Sure!

How about the delicate, luminous “Torn Apart,” mandolin-flecked (by Barry Fell) with the spare but essential presence of the by-now-rarely-heard dobro courtesy William Tonks that in its humbly inevitable way makes me melancholy if not joyous at least – and quite elegantly in this case  – as it presents as an essential piece of what makes this spin through existence so damn fascinating? Or “The Music Weaver,” percussive, entrancing, intimate down to the bone? Not a jot of which, as it happens, adequately prepares us for the near perfect trifecta that brings the album home.

Consider the boisterously irrepressible – and quite appropriately-named – “Amazing” that’s carried forth with what we’re going to go ahead and call a ‘blistering delicacy’ that in itself carries a vibe joyous and vibrant enough to sustain one through one’s day no matter how otherwise fraught it may be and what more could one ask from a rock song? That that gem is followed by a transfixing take on “The Wind Cries Mary” that strips the Hendrix classic down to its bluesy folkish roots while not losing a hint of its incendiary intent (be assured that Gal’s guitar work spares no shred) – none of which by this point in the record comes as any surprise – which leaves us at the exit, ushered out by the plaintive, stripped-down cabaret-ish “Who Cares,” Boston at the mike under a smoky spotlight with nothing but a Steinway (Terry Adams on the bench which is appropriate given he along with David Greenberger wrote the song), a track that leaves us in the kind of wistful mood one might likely be in while helping close down a lonely smoky piano bar on a rainy Tuesday night.

Conclusion? Well, allow me to be succinct: I should be happy? Hell, by the end of this thing, as someone deep in the lure of music for over fifty years now, I was pretty much just plain ecstatic.