Album Review: Anna B Savage, A Common Turn

Adopting an approach that's almost frighteningly introspective, Anna B Savage doesn't tiptoe around the point, or settle for platitudes on A Common Turn. Rather, the London singer-songwriter finds meaning in the seemingly mundane in-between moments, and value in the unspoken happenings that are usually left unexplored, or merely alluded to, by other songwriters. From female sexuality to deep-set insecurities, no issue is too intimate for the London-born, Dublin-based artist to approach, with her trademark disarming candidness.

Across the album, Savage’s unique vocal style brings an operatic splendour and polish (a byproduct of her upbringing as the child of classical singers) to the rawest roots of folk – with added electronic touches also helping to create a sense of profound urgency in her work.

References to her influences, like Nick Drake’s Pink Moon and Leonard Cohen’s ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’, are scattered throughout A Common Turn – but Savage is doing more than simply paying homage to these artists’ refusal to conform to traditional songwriting structures. She carries their legacies forward in her own right, as a fearlessly original and captivatingly human talent.

Out now.