MADELEINE PEYROUX

Let’s Walk (Thirty Tigers)

A frustratingly near-fantastic album, Let’s Walk is Madeleine Peyroux’s first in six years – noticeably, as this is a collection borne of the Black Lives Matter and post-pandemic awakenings of those years. The honey-voiced jazz-folk singer is as well known for her original songs as her cover versions of Tom Waits and Steely Dan, but this is an album of entirely new pieces, all co-written by Peyroux. And, good as they are, I just wonder if they’re the right selection.

Opener Find True Love is one of the most perfect songs imaginable, wistful and moving, melodic and melancholy. How I Wish is brutally self-scathing and merciless of American hypocrisy. Then a selection of gospel-inspired pieces seem to take the album somewhere else before typical Peyroux chanson returns. There is some truly brilliant writing and performing on here, but Let’s Walk doesn’t quite lead the listener where you wish it would.

words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES