Lodestar

"Lodestar is the work of a woman who sings for the love of singing, and is as invested in the mysteries and joys of these timeless songs as she was half-a-century ago. The album isn't a comeback but a continuum, and a welcome return from a true oracle of traditional song".

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"From Lodestar's opening barrage of death notes and hurdy-gurdy drones, it's understandable why followers would paint Shirley Collins as a seer: a divine wyrd for a new weird England that has closed its borders to return to the same dark ages that spawned many of the ballads Collins covers on this collection of songs dating back to the 16th Century ... Sensitively recorded with ex-Coil duo Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown (now trading as Cyclobe), Lodestar has a defiantly political agenda. The Banks Of Green Willow and Washed Ashore both tell tragic tales of heinous sea captains, leaving their women pregnant and drowned or resigned to the grave. The likes of Nic Jones and Martin Carthy have sung these songs before, but Collins, now 81, and her Hastings-born tones a wavering but distant echo of the once-haunting vocals of her youth, imbues them with history, dignity and depth. - "New record of the month"".

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"For her first record in 38 years, the wonderful British folk singer Shirley Collins dazzles with a collection of macabre and mischievous songs from centuries past ... That Lodestar exists at all feels like a minor miracle. That it is so exquisitely done is a small blessing on top".

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"Well, that's album of the year sorted then ... [Shirley] has long been a veritable national treasure, and then some. But even taking all that into account, this is - impossibly wonderful. Her voice is deeper, a little cracked in places maybe - no bad thing when you're singing traditional songs of death, murder and betrayal - but she palpably remains the Shirley who'd inhabit any song with such gentle ease. When she sings "Death & The Lady", it is spine-tingling stuff; Shirley at 80 exhibiting the same lived-in, stripped-down rawness Johnny Cash struck singing "Hurt" ... Much credit (...) must go to producer/musical director Ian Kearey, who refuses to entertain any notion of this becoming mere nostalgia-fest with a series of clever and telling accompaniments".