Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Consistency is always a given attribute and always wished for but it is a rare and beguiling thing that few really attain, the expected dip perhaps in form, the slide into the possible mediocre or the distraught finding that it was all just one album to far, a career of consistent beauty, of a dramatic and sensual voice captured each and every time, not everyone gets that luxury but then not everybody has The Best of Eddi Reader on their side.
Eddi Reader has that consistency wrapped around her mainly due to the deep affection and belief she pours into every song, it is an affection that is giving, that is playful and liberal but also staunchly radical in its repose and above all it is offered not just with a gesture of love, it is a love that is personified; the song and the woman deeply entwined in each other, intricate and free.
The first ever compilation by the charismatic singer sees 30 tracks picked from across her career and placed before the discerning listener and the definitive article, The Best of Eddi Reader is truly defining and crucially essential. It is an album that relishes the top layered simplicity of the nature of the music but also heralds the deep complexity of wanting to take the lyrics and weave them into a full narrative; these are a set of songs in which the story behind them is as important as the tune and music that surrounds the lyrical wonder.
With songs such as Perfect, Patience Of Angels, Dear John, Muddy Water, the heart breaking My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose, Vagabond, The Girl Who Fell In Love With The Moon, Leezie Lindsay, Snowflakes In the Sun and the gracious Moon River all making their mark on the conscious of the listener, it is hard to find a way to not fall in love, it makes the listener sweat, not through indifference but with the positive understanding that the music is deeply endearing and like a first love’s kiss it stays in the heart longer, almost rejoicing in its fortune, for longer than you thought and the impression it leaves behind is one seared into the skin.
A magnificent collection, The Best of Eddi Reader is no misnomer, it is simply the most perfect of titles; a grand and beautiful compilation.
Ian D. Hall