Search - Maddy Prior :: Year

Maddy Prior is best known as the lead singer of the British folk-rock band Steeleye Span, but on Year she substitutes cello, acoustic piano, and recorder for Steeleye's amplified guitars and fiddle. In fact, the instrumental interludes from the cello and piano provide the glue that holds together the album's two ambitious song suites. The first suite bundles up seven shorter tunes about the four seasons, while the second binds six short songs about the Fabled Hare. This sounds ominously artsy, but Prior's lovely, understated singing, combined with Nick Holland's subdued chamber-folk arrangements, turns the suites into elegantly harmonized triumphs. --Geoffrey Himes