[Azzi_Kahlila]

The story is definitely the least interesting aspect of the album for me. I get that she was asked to do a "song cycle" and decided that that meant including all this narrative element, but hearing her in interviews with a straight face talking about a mythical shape-shifting fox-cum-goose who brings her into an Irish forest, having travelled across the Atlantic on a sailboat, was a little off-putting. I'm fine with her using mythical themes and drawing on a certain geographical area, but I think I'd rather it was suggested and hinted at and used thematically - I think it was the extreme level of detail to this supposed story that made it less appealing. The music itself is perhaps her most focused and sophisticated work since SW.