Keep your courage

"[Merchant is] in hymnal, soulful mode on the opening brace of '"Big Girls" and "Come On Aphrodite", the latter the closest she's come to the melodic college rock since her days fronting 10,000 Maniacs. There are further gospel hues on the Americana strum of "Song Of Himself" and jazzy "Tower Of Babel", while the waltz ballad "Eye Of The Storm" eloquently dissects a romance on the rocks ... She remains a powerfully evocative writer over a 40-year career peppered with high watermarks".

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"Most of the album is stately and sober, careful and cautious compositions that touch upon myths and legends as a way to address personal and political issues. Merchant's inherently warm, empathetic voice keeps the album from seeming still in its quiet moments, of which there are many; most of the record either simmers slowly or requires concentration to narrow in on its core emotions. Perhaps the album could use a few more cuts like "Tower of Babel," whose spruced-up New Orleans swing is a clear outlier here, but there's something softly compelling and endearing about Merchant's dedication to kindness, not to mention her penchant for literature and history. Where her peers have scaled down their ambitions, she's reaching for grand ideas and emotions on Keep Your Courage, turning her personal journey into something universal".

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"'Keep Your Courage' [is Merchant's] first [album] of all-new material in nine years. It's also her most beautiful in decades ... Along with her core band are members of Lankum and another Irish group, Lúnasa, a horn section, woodwind, backing vocalists and singer Abena Koomson-Davis, with whom Merchant duets on "Come On, Aphrodite". Overall, it sounds cohesive, but varied too. And, given the epic cast, remarkably uncluttered, with its focus on the voice and the song".