Taylor Park
Folk Music, 2016

Connie Dover is more into Scottish folk tunes and she shows up on compilations of Celtic tunes more often than not, but Restless Angel is a different kind of outing for her. After spending some time living in a Wyoming ranch, she ends up with new tracks that become this album.

Ms Dover’s voice is as usual crystal clear to such a degree that she can convey all kinds of emotions with it. Hence, her music is often evocative, and listening to her can be a visceral head trip as well as a cathartic experience. All she needs are some banjo, guitars, and fiddles in the background and she will unleash melancholy, loneliness, heartbreak, and other kinds of passionate responses one tends to get after living too long in a ranch.

Songs such as Is This the Part? and The Passion Tree are gorgeous standouts, while What’s the Game Today? and Restless Angel would be right at home next to one’s Connie Francis albums. Most of the songs here are perfect for those days when one just wants to weep about regrets and things that could have been, and is bored of putting Juice Newton’s Angel of the Morning on replay so often.

Unfortunately, the songs in Restless Angel all resemble one another after all, with the tempo never changing or switching up much throughout. It’s way too easy to slip from weeping away to snoring away at the table, with drool pooling over the photo of one’s ex that one has been moping over. As gorgeous as Ms Dover’s voice may be, this one is best taken in small doses. Play all the songs at once, and the resonance will slowly morph into somnambulism. That’s probably a good thing anyway, as catharsis too is best enjoyed in small doses.