Fran Rodgers - The Green Room EP
From the medieval chord pattern on opening track, 'The Lighthouse' through to the urgent strings on album dénouement 'The Protester', Fran Rodgers’ debut EP sounds as if it could have been recorded any time in the last five centuries. With the syncopated harmonies and self-styled finger-picking that permeate "The Green Room", one can picture the folkie songstress recording the EP in a hut in Sherwood Forest, surviving on leaves and berries like a vegan Bon Iver.
In fact, The Green Room sees Rodgers following up the success of her recent single and performances at Leeds and Reading festivals last summer and is set for release in late February. Her folk-tinged melodies carry the stories of love, loss and hope over a harmonious blend of acoustic guitars and subtle percussion, evoking comparisons with Beth Orton and Mary Black. Lyrically, Rodgers often leans on metaphors, in particular the nautical theme that runs throughout 'A Place to Lay Your Head', with a siren-like vocal quality drawing the listener into her ageless world of beauty and despair.
Wild Beasts’ Tom Fleming provides backing vocals that balance Rodgers’ shrill melodies on 'I See Horses Flee', hauntingly chanting, “They’ll be tears tonight, in this quiet town”; the lyrics denote Rodgers’ provincial upbringing in Nottinghamshire and is the EP’s gentle summit.
The strength of The Green Room’s songs lies in their simplicity; whether this could hold the listener for an entire album remains to be seen, yet with female electro-pop tipped to be what’s hot in 2009, artists like Rodgers and Smoke Fairies seem to be the perfect antidote to Lady GaGa and her ilk.