Album Review: Leave Me Breathless, Ane Brun

Inspired by a brief love affair, the seventh studio album from Swedish-based Norwegian songstress Ane Brun features radical re-interpretations of 14 songs. Covering both mainstream and more eclectic fare, it’s certainly wide-ranging and, some might say, brave in its scope and reach. It’s a rare artist, for example, who would include Foreigner’s soaring FM ballad ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ (re-imagined here as a torch song) alongside Nick Cave’s darkly romantic ‘Into My Arms’. Maria McKee’s ‘Show Me Heaven’ – another showstopper – is toned down several notches, while even more audaciously, Mariah Carey’s lip-quivering ‘Hero’ is transformed into (of all things) an ambient epic.

The crystal-voiced Brun performed Dylan’s ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ at the Nobel Prize ceremony last year and, unlike Adele’s powerhouse reading, she gets to the essence of the song. Backed with just gently-picked acoustic guitar and a lonesome violin, the singer gives the tune real emotional power. Meanwhile a much earlier Dylan composition, ‘Girl From The North Country’, is given more traditional treatment.

Elsewhere, Brun takes an ethereal approach to Willie Nelson’s ‘Always On My Mind’; gives Lucinda Williams’ aching ‘Right In Time’ an exquisitely melancholic feel; and does full justice to Tom Petty’s ‘No Reason To Cry’, which takes on an added poignancy given the singer’s tragic and unexpected passing. Overall, a wonderful effort.

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7/10