Album: Virginia MacNaughton

Levers Pulleys & Engines, Paraphernalia

There's been a three-year gap between the recording of Virginia MacNaughton's Levers Pulleys & Engines and its release, during which time her brand of urbane, soul-searching folk-rock has crept back into fashion through the success of David Gray, Kathryn Williams, and others. While MacNaughton's voice has something of the pale, wan manner of Dido's, her work is probably most comparable to Williams's, not just in the jazz-tinged refinement of the arrangements, but also in the way that she seeks to unpick the mysteries of human attraction, her songs serving as mirrors to more clearly discern the workings of her own heart. As she enquires early on, in one of the album's most appropriately convoluted lines, "How can you be here still/And what is the maze I find I still want to get lost in with you?". There's a heightened sense, in songs such as "Faceless" and "Big Sky", of the relative power values operating within relationships, with lines such as, "Shallow I can do, I can thrive here", and, "We may be charmed but still essentially prey", suggesting a natural affinity with the more subservient position. "Faceless", in particular, deftly conveys the limbo of living a supporting role to a higher-profile partner, forever suffering the other's maladies and exulting in their triumphs, but always at second-hand. Worry and self-reproach stalk through the album's 10 tracks, constantly questioning motives and fretting over impressions gleaned or given: even the afterglow of sex, in "Night Into Day", seems fraught with apprehension over whether the warmth and intimacy will survive in the cold light of day.