Alela Diane The Pirate's Gospel by: Matt Smith Wed:07-Nov-07 Label: Holocene Music Year: 2007 WB rating 82 out of 100

There's a sweet story behind the debut long-player from rising new-folk star and Nevada City native Alela Diane. Written during an extended period away from her hometown, during which she travelled across Europe and lived for a spell in San Francisco, the songs on the album are a response to the divorce of her parents, the resultant loss of the family home, and a sense of being rootless in an unfamiliar city. Upon her return to Nevada City and circumstances that were very different from those in which she left, Diane took the songs to her father's home built studio where together they recorded what was to become The Pirate's Gospel.  The first run of albums were self released, hand-made with paper and lace sleeves and hand lettered, then distributed to a small circle of friends and family. Passed from person to person, word of mouth soon bought it to attention of the media, fellow musicians and record labels. The Pirate's Gospel has now been 'properly' released in America, the UK and Australia, where it has received almost universal acclaim.

It is testament to the strength of the songs on the album that they have lost none of their warmth and intimacy in the transition from a very personal project to a wider release. While there are some big themes being explored here - family, loss, home and an absence of home - there is always a keen sense that Diane is pouring all of her already considerable experience and all of her feeling into the melodies that she plucks from her guitar strings and the words she sings over them. This evident force of feeling and emotion is helped by the canny restraint shown in the songwriting, arrangement and production: the songs are short (most are under three minutes) and focused, are predominantly guitar and voice led, and the playing, although always excellent, is never showy. The clarity is refreshing and allows the listener to really connect to the songs.

Of course, for an album of this kind, vocals are vitally important. Fortunately, Diane is gifted with one of those voices possessing an indefinable quality that immediately grabs a person's attention without them truly knowing why, that goes beyond merely being pleasant to listen to and becomes a channel with which the artist can place whatever emotion they like in the heart of the listener. Her voice has a compelling ambiguity to it: undeniably beautiful, often gentle and warm, but fully capable of hinting at something harder, a bit of fire and brimstone that creeps along the edges of her gospel, appearing in songs like 'The Rifle', in which Diane sings 'Papa get the rifle from it's place above the french doors/they're coming from the woods, they're coming from the woods'.

It is one of the gentler songs that provides the stand-out track, however. Album closer 'Oh! My Mama' is a touchingly heartfelt thank-you letter set to a simple melody, in which Diane sets aside her concerns about the complicated nature of the family, and beautifully expresses her gratitude for the support and love shown to her by her Mother: 'oh my Mama, she gave me these feathered breaths/oh my Mama, she told me use your voice my little bird'

The Pirate's Gospel is an outstanding and surprisingly mature debut from an artist who has only been writing songs and playing guitar for four years, and a perfect album to have with you during a spell away from home. It is difficult to recall an album that better expresses both the excitement of leaving town to head for new horizons and the happiness felt upon return.