Jackie Leven – Night Lilies

The short album review in Musikexpress (signed “tw”) opens with a grand gesture: Jackie Leven's comeback is one of the unexpected triumphs of the decade. After the break-up of the new wave band Doll By Doll in 1983, its former leader seemed entangled only in a “thicket of depression and drug addiction”. Only an intensive engagement with Scottish mythology, poetry and folk gave him new strength and optimism.

The album The Mystery Of Love Is Greater Than The Mystery Of Death was audibly influenced by these cultural studies and, thanks to warm compositions and a recitative delivery, got Leven talked about again. Now the healing process seems complete and the way open for new ideas. On his fourth solo album Leven takes a bigger step towards pop music: he adapts fifties rock 'n' roll, has female backing voices breathe doo-wop vocals, quotes country and blues, and always lays a cleanly formulated melody over the top. The performer's sensitivity and maturity prevent an abrupt break of style and strengthen Leven's “already considerable position as an expressive, independent songwriter at the edge of the mainstream”.