Album Review: Suzannah Espie - Sea Of Lights

Suzannah Espie has been a fixture on Melbourne's alt-country scene for almost 15 years. It's that experience that allows an artist like Espie to record an album like this. Put together over three days on four-track by Jeff Lang, this album is a collaboration between a group of friends, with Espie and Lang joined by Liz Stringer and Chris Altmann on production duties. Despite the 40-degree Melbourne heat in which the album was recorded, the overwhelming feeling Sea Of Lights gives off is a beautifully relaxed grace.

The banjo and mandolin wrap earthy, bluegrass melodies around Espie's effortless voice. Though there isn't an absolute showstopper track here, the album offers up a couple of charming almosts, including Rosedale, the story of a wedding that forces the song's protagonist to admit her feelings for the groom, though she's not the bride, and Raining In Armidale, a song written by folk artist Annaliesse Monaro with a gorgeous gentle swing and Altmann's fiddle playing.

Though harmonies are used sparingly they resonate when they are. Black Lighthouse plays the female and male vocals off each other to touching effect. But Espie's voice is confident and clear on its own and the decision to hold back on the harmonies has definitely been well made. There's an ease to this album that only comes from sitting in a room among friends, switching the mics on and pressing record. Espie may not be as well-known in other parts of the country as she is in Melbourne, but alt-country fans across Australia would be doing themselves a disservice to not remember this name.