The Consequence of Love - Rianne Downey Album Review

Words: Tom Gensler

Rianne Downey is one of the UK’s most promising up-and-coming country artists. In the last few years, she’s had a rather meteoric rise in popularity with music fans, largely due to her becoming a vocalist for Paul Heaton, of The Housemartins and The Beautiful South. However, she is a wonderful and extremely talented artist in her own right, boasting lush vocal melodies over soft and precise guitar. Her debut album, and fourth longer release, The Consequence of Love, is a heartfelt love letter to the British country and folk musical tradition, whilst also being strikingly modern and excellently written.

The album’s overall sound is, as previously described, country and folk-leaning. The guitars are soft and pronounced, the vocals are airy and the drums are chilled and well-placed. This combination is key to where the album succeeds, for me, as the instrumentals all work in perfect harmony to provide a solid and extremely listenable backbone for which Rianne’s soaring vocals can easily sit over. All of this leads to a very consistent sound throughout the album, one that both accentuates the emotive lyrical content of the songs and helps to further the genre into a unqiue, modern territory. Rianne’s identity is very well thought out and very strong, everything part of the album gives us a better idea of the bigger picture whilst simultaneously giving the listener an introspective view of herself and her world.

The Song of Old Glencoe is an exceptional song in every way. Arguably, it's the most folky song on the work, and this really enhances the album. The fingerpicked guitar with a familiar, four-chord progression really helps to enhance the feelings of love towards the Celtic world. Rianne’s grasp of the folk tradition really shines through here, and this song alone show just how good she is a songwriter. The abstract vocal segments found in the chorus are sublime, and evoke a really beautiful feeling of homeliness, one that again is very deeply tied to the folk tradition. This is an extremely strong song and a great, if not the best, example of how Rianne simultaneously balances these older musical ideas with modern vocals and production to create something unique and wonderful in every way.

CREDIT: Sam Crowston

The songwriting across the whole work is amazing too. The way her heartfelt lyrics blend

perfectly with the instrumental arrangements is really clever; every melody she sings conveys movement and emotion whilst the music sets the tonal mood. The band approach to these songs really works here; it really elevates the whole experience. What stands out is just how much care has gone into the actual arrangements, with the non-guitar instruments being practical in supporting Rianne’s folk-inspired picking technique. The attention to craft on this album is simply brilliant.

With a short-and-sweet thirty-minute runtime, Rianne makes sure to not pull any country

punches at all. Every song fits perfectly and nothing is out of place. However, this short runtime is my only issue with the album, the songs are brilliant and the sounds are immaculate and so I’d really like more of it; thirty minutes is good but not really enough, for me. What is present is incredible, so it does make up for it.

A title track should be a window into the world of the album, both sonically and emotionally, and The Consequence of Love is certainly no exception. On this song, Rianne spins a tale of undying, wholly committed love. She fully goes for it here, showing a complete and almost painful devotion, all over whimsical and chill guitar patterns that bring her back down from a spiral. For me, this represents what I believe to be the emotional core of the album: the dizzied and frenzied love feelings that cannot be controlled. These feelings set to a country and folk beat makes for an exciting change of pace in modern music, which is something that makes this song, and this album so unique and interesting when set against others.

The album’s production is fantastic, and both serves the music well whilst bringing the genre into the modern musical landscape perfectly. No part takes away from another and every single bit works well together. Rianne’s vocals are mixed very well and it's impressive to see. Her powerful, bold and ethereal vocals flow so well over the instrumentals, so huge props to the producers for managing it all so well, it sounds lush and so smooth.

Overall, The Consequence of Love is an extremely enjoyable and truly fantastic work, blending modern lyrical and emotional sensibilities with retro folk and country sonic aesthetics to create a dazzling thirty minutes of guitar climax. The themes of folk heritage, love and commitment run deep throughout the whole work, giving it a strong, resounding unified feel. Rianne Downey is an artist on the up, and if this is just a taste of what’s to come, I’m extremely excited as this is one fantastic album.