New York singer-songwriter Ambrosia Parsley's 2013 album Weeping Cherry is now being released in the UK, with the bonus track 'Answer', through Barbès Records. Most will probably know her as the lead singer of Shivaree (1997-2007).

This debut album has been a long time in the making and Parsley states that Weeping Cherry is a work of reflective therapy, an opportunity for its maker to speak to loved ones lost, and to treat the past as prologue. In the span of a single year, Parsley endured the deaths of a series of friends, bandmates, and relatives. The songs of Weeping Cherry are, in her words, "basically conversations with dead people..."

It's not, however, a gloomy album. In fact Parsley states that it's a celebration of - and conversation with -the past and that she doesn't believe that the record sounds really sad because she wasn’t really sad when she was making it. While it's not a happy, bouncy summer album, it's certainly not a melancholic one either.

Parley's vocals are perfect on beautiful tracks like 'Catalina' (one of the album's high points) and the retro sounding 'The Answer (Tim and Becky`s Wedding)'.

It's an enjoyable album and one that, I'm sure her fans will agree, was certainly worth the wait.

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Nick Smithson