Damien Rice. Good, now that’s out of the way…

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[7.50]

Katherine St Asaph: Lisa Hannigan’s last album, Sea Sew, almost made her a star Stateside but didn’t quite take, meaning she’s due once more for the obvious Damien Rice commentary. It’s not hard to see why, though; the album’s muted and gorgeous but not attention-grabbing, less suited to introductions than the warm intimacy of an old friend. Unsurprisingly, “Knots” is more upbeat than anything on Sea Sew. It’s propulsive, even stomping, and the chorus’s “in my high heels and my old dress / with my new keys and the roses” is among Hannigan’s more grounded lyrics. It’s still a Lisa Hannigan song, though, meaning voice and piano and strings are all shudderingly beautiful. What’s a little more hook?
[9]

Edward Okulicz: Hannigan knows a potent hook when she writes one, and doubly so when she sings and arranges it with such dramatic skill. “Knots” is a textbook example of how to use strings to increase the intensity of a track, rather than just sticking them on because you can; rather than floating aimlessly, they are shivers up the spine of the track, bleak yet captivating squalls. The real knock-out proves to be the high notes on the chorus, but whether they’d punch the heart so fiercely without the urgent strings I don’t know or care.
[9]

Jonathan Bogart: She herself calls what she does “plinky plonk rock,” which would be so twee it makes my teeth hurt, except there’s more drone, tension and release to this than she gives herself credit for. And, yes, plenty of plinky plonk. Not as much as I’d feared, but still too much.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Folkish stuff that refuses politeness, or at least is not as polite as the genre could be. I love how it rises up and makes noise near the end, the sputtering and sparking of knotted hearts not fully capable of functioning as they should. This noise intervenes with the acoustic guitar, making the interaction between word and music deeper and more complicated.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Hannigan keeps dangerously enfeebled company: there’s the musical relationship with Damien Rice, and Ray “Bonnie Prince Bilious” LaMontagne shows up on her new record for a co-mewl. When she’s on her own, though, results are swell: this is a finely-crafted track with room for a couple of emotional jumps. The start feints toward twee, as ukelele and shaker mix with her sotto voce delivery. But she keeps constructing higher plateaus as the song picks up momentum, strings, and horns: by the end, everyone’s bowing with ferocity and Hannigan’s changed her delivery to high dudgeon.
[8]

Iain Mew: I always loved her bits best on Damien Rice’s stuff, but there’s something about this that feels like far too much craft and toil and not enough space for personality, and I have a very difficult time finding any way into it emotionally. It reminds me of Laura Marling’s “Devil’s Spoke”, and having gone back I see that I said almost exactly the same about that, so maybe I’m just never going to get on with this particular type of arrangement.
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