ANNE McCUE – BROKEN PROMISE LAND

Anne McCue’s come a long way since her days with Girl Monstar, a Sydney band who enjoyed some success in the early 90s.  Moving to the US after a stint in Vietnam, she’s established herself as a solo artist and jobbing musician, with heavy-hitting fans – including Lucinda Williams – spreading the word. Like Williams she mostly does a line in gritty, sexy blues-rock, and on her latest album Broken Promise Land she marks out a diverse, if occasionally quirky, stylistic territory that sets her apart from the average Nashville songbird.  Her default singing style is a relaxed smoulder, and her guitar playing – the main event here – is something else. McCue’s a terrific soloist: fiery, inventive and fluid, with a droning experimental streak that betrays her indie roots. She has a real gift for matching a loose, funky riff to a song. The single Don’t Go To Texas (Without Me) rides a sleazy, slippery groove worthy of the Rolling Stones. Ol’ Black Sky, with its skeletal, hypnotic guitar and keening falsetto vocals, evokes big desert landscapes, McCue peeling off a fuzzed-out, Black Sabbath-esque solo .
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