Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The end of one decade and the start of another in your life always brings about the chance to reflective with what you have achieved and where you see your life going. It is only right that as you grow, your 20s and your 50s are wildly different and perhaps more contemplative, more attuned to a world that at points feels as though is crumbling down right around you and the urge to set it right for the those following on behind.

For Suzanne Vega, it is a chance to come back and build a bridge between now and the last seven years since her last studio album. It is also a chance to show just how good this woman was and still is at penning lyrics that dig deep into a poets psyche and the ability to show others through a cascade of painted words that just pour off the page into the thoughts of the listener. It is a dream to be able to relish in somebody’s thoughts, to envisage the musical poetry that resides in a creative mind is a privilege that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Tales From the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles certainly has the most interesting title for an album that will probably be released during 2014 and the tracks that make up the recording compliment the big idea, the moment that the listener realises that she has been working up to this moment since she first started playing her quirky and supremely interesting music in the New York clubs. The poet’s aspiration made finally real.

Unlike the songs that started her career, tracks such as Fool’s Complaint, the excellent I Never Wear White, which has the feel of a wonderful admission to the feminist cause, the incredible Don’t Uncork What You Can’t Contain, which features the use of the Smichov Chamber Orchestra Prague in such a way that is outstanding, and the channelling of thought in Jacob and the Angel all make the album more poetic than many will probably appreciate at first glance, however it is this feminine poetry, the stunning ability of an outstanding creator of vision that will entangle and covet your imagination to its fullest.

Tales From the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles is a remarkable piece of work by one of the foremost female musicians/ lyric writers of her generation.

Ian D. Hall