The Bandit Queen Of Sorrows is the dark folk output of storyteller, singer/songwriter, poet, and multi-instrumentalist Leslie Fox-Humphreys, featuring cello, guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, percussion, and the Shruti Box, and blending the back-alley bar rasp with a velvet falsetto. Starting her musical journey at five years old, playing violin and cello, she hit the road at the age of nineteen and has been wandering nomadically for the last fourteen years since
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I have always enjoyed listening to a singer who plays acoustic guitar and sings and then turns to the harmonica on the rack when it is time to add a different nuance, and we get that here. As with the recent release on Anti-Corp by Aurelia Anne Cohen, this is an album which is coming to us from another time and place, here due to the structure of the songs. This is Americana to the core, telling us stories, with only the cicadas for company (and they were in fine form that night). It takes balls to sing with no protection, no accompaniment or studio trickery to hide behind, but that is what we get with opener “The Ways Of Man” where Leslie remembers at times to strum the acoustic or wail on the harmonica, but it feels an effort as she bares her all. This is so far removed from the plastic pap on the radio as to be a different (and far superior) art form altogether.
I have achieved most of musical ambitions, but I think if I was ever able to grace the presence of Dan Emery when he is recording Leslie again, I know I would be in awe. Here we have someone evoking the spirit of the settlers, singing by the light of the fire in the middle of the desert as they journey to where they know not. This is not something created in the second quarter of the 21st Century but instead is calling to us from hundreds of years ago. Required listening for all fans of folk, Americana, or simply good music from someone who has nothing to hide and everything to share.
Rating: 9/10
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/thebanditqueenofsorrows/
https://anticorpmusic.com/