Worry Dolls - The River (2019)

Their first new material since 2017’s debut album, Go Get Gone, this five-track EP finds The Worry Dolls – Zoe Nicol and Rosie Jones – in somewhat grittier mood with the title track opener, a reverb guitar Americana folk-blues styled number they describe as being about feeling you’ve lost yourself and needing to get back to your roots. The EP was produced with Sam Beer from the Tree TopFlyers and co-written, as with the former, with Jeff Cohen with whom they collaborated on their AMA-nominated Endless Road. The breathily sung Firefly opens with the organ coming up like dawn before the ruminative guitar strum and dappled banjo notes arrive to greet the slow waltzing celebration of a moment in time.

Don’t Leave Your Light On is more of a spooked folksy backwoods sound, a dark seam running through lyrics about shattered dreams and nothing being what it seems as they songs variously address the loss of loved ones, coming to terms with sexuality and mental health struggles, getting a little musically lighter with the piano-accompanied self-questioning harmonies of the post-break-up She Don’t Live Here Anymore.

Having opened with a river, the water gathers force as thumping drums pave the way into the final track, Tidal Wave, a musically gutsy, rolling riffing lost relationship number clearly influenced by their affection for Fleetwood Mac. Hopefully, a new full album will be surfacing some time next year, on the evidence here it should be hefty stuff.