BRIAN HUGHES - Back To Where I'm Going

Dumbarton’s singing detective is back with his follow up to the highly acclaimed “Windmills” album of all original material. The first think to note is the excellent production and delivery. Brian’s vocals styling is well suited to today’s modern Country markets. With the backing of his Lone Sharks band, and the likes of Davie Holland and others, the instrumentation is superb.
The songs cover a variety of styles like relationships and stardom.
“Leave The Light On” has a catchy link to it, whilst “Where Loves Breaks Down” is quite commercial,
“Lullaby” is quite a sentimental sad Daddy & Daughter song, which still fits well into the album, as does “Life Goes On”.
“Jesus and CMT” and “Next Big Thing” both see Brian wanting to make it big in Nashville, just like he did with “One Of These Days” on his last album. Everything being fair, Brian should be getting the attention in Nashville on the strength of this album. It’s equally, or more, listenable than much of the material coming out of Music City these days.
Stand out track for me, however is “Absolute Decree”, which has no intro, and goes straight into the line “This Old Guitar of Mine Is Yours, Songs I Wrote On It Aint No Use, If You’re Not There To Hear Them Anymore”. Words that just make a Country song. This track is so well put together, it should be a hit.
Brian has made his mark on local festivals during the last year or two, and is back at The Selkirk Festival and club dates at the Opry & Silver Spur clubs in March, Perhaps this album should increase his audience based much wider.
Available oonline from www.brianhughesmusic.com

ISLA GRANT - Faith, Love And Hope

Isla is one of Scotlans's top musical exports, selling out across Ireland, Australia & Canada. She is yet to achieve the success that she richly deserves from her ain folk.
Her latest album, on Ireland's CMR label (and distributed in the UK by Rosette) sees the gentle Borders based singer songwriter concentrate on the popular light gospel market. Across the 13 self penned tracks, Isla sings of family values and respect for God, without being getting too heavily religious.
Indeed, the format is the same warm style that we've become used to from Isla.
If you're already a big fan, you'll recognise a couple of tracks. "Will You Walk With Me", and her Christymas song, "The Dat That Christ Was Born" have been released previously, but there are still 11 new tracks on offer here.
My favourites would have to be the bouncy "He Walks Beside Me" and "Will You Walk With Me", together with "If Only This Old World Could Be A Peace".