It can’t be easy living up to the kind of acclaim Kathleen Edwards attracted when her debut album Failer was released in 2003.

Rolling Stone magazine named her as the most promising new artist of the year and she appeared on US TV shows such as Letterman and Leno as well as garnering opening slots with Dylan and The Stones. She was even described in some quarters as the new Lucinda Williams or a female Ryan Adams. But it wasn’t all hype and her richly emotive voice and country-inflected songs like ‘Six O’Clock News’ and ‘One More Song The Radio Won’t Play’ proved that the 26 year-old Canadian had talent to burn. The follow up, Back To Me more than delivers on the promise of Failer with another collection of memorable songs and some great playing on the part of her backing band. Did she feel any pressure to come up with the goods given the acclaim Failer received?
“I definitely went into the studio with a much more heightened sense of awareness this time around,” she says. “But that all passed within a couple of weeks and I focused on the job in hand. The main thing was I surrounded myself with people that I knew and trusted."
Back To Me doesn’t mark any dramatic change in the alt. country textures of Failer – was there any temptation to go for a more mainstream approach?
“No definitely not,” she insists. “I didn’t want to make any big artistic departure. I think I’m still defining what it is that I want to sound like. Failer was getting there but I think the singing isn’t all that great on some of the songs. It’s not that it isn’t genuine or delivered in a heartfelt way, but it’s just that I’ve toured that record for almost two years and I got more and more used to what my voice naturally sounds like.”
As the daughter of a diplomat she’s well used to travelling but touring is something she’s taken to with a vengeance over the past two years. How does she find life on the road?
“There are some nights after you’ve done the 150th show that you think it feels repetitive," she acknowledges. "But it’s more that it’s comfortable and you have to remember that people are seeing you for the first time. With Failer there was so much more leg-work about getting your name out there. In America I spent so much time going to every radio station so they could form kind of a relationship with me and play my record. This time around a lot of them started playing me without me having to go there which was great.”
No stranger to these shores Edwards appeared with Josh Ritter on his Irish tour at the tail end of 2004. She also appeared at Kilkenny’s Rhythm and Roots Festival in 2003. (On her web-site diary she confesses she may even move to Dublin to live as she finds it so “gorgeous!”) She’s back for a short Irish tour in April, when she and her band will be performing in some of the country's most intimate venues. Catch her close up while you still can!

Back To Me gets a live airing at An Cruiscin Lan, Cork (April 10); Roisin Dubh, Galway (11); and Whelan's, Dublin (12).