Siobhan Donaghy - Ghosts - Tiscali Music Reviews

25th June 2007

• WATCH SIOBHAN DONAGHY EXCLUSIVELY ON TISCALI
• ORDER THIS ALBUM ON CD
• DOWNLOAD THIS ALBUM HERE

Siobhan Donaghy is almost unrecognisable from the 16yr old songbird whose laconic gaze first swept across Sugababes' 'Overload' video in the summer of 2000.

She's unrecognisable visually, musically and emotionally, as her second solo album 'Ghosts' demonstrates. A stunning sonic progression from her debut in 2003, 'Revolution In Me', 'Ghosts' is the startling result of a collaborative "vision" from the enigmatic mind of producer/programmer James Sanger (Keane, U2, Brian Eno). Coolly dramatic as vintage Kate Bush, as vocally ephemeral as the Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser and as electro-dazzling as 'Ray Of Light'-era Madonna, the album is pop sophistication at its classiest; dazzling, planet-sized pulsing with loss, pain, fear, forgiveness, running and hope.

From the orchestral swell of 'So You Say', to the soaring dramatics of 'Coming Up For Air', to the booming bass of the epic 'Medivac', to the eastern-tinged disco-pop of 'Sometimes', to the guitar-fried '12 Bar Acid Blues' to the head-spinning sorcery of colossal first single 'Don't Give It Up' (a masterclass in mesmerizing, psychedelic longing), 'Ghosts' is an extraordinary album unlike anything around right now.

Other highlights include the magical, lush-stringed beauty of 'There Is A Place', which sounds as if a young Olivia Newton John suddenly turned up on one of Noel Gallagher¢s greatest ballads, and the phenomenal title-track, 'Ghosts', full of random words and backwards production trickery, no less than a sonic monastery.