Reviews

There's no teenage angst. There's no heavy metal guitar solos. There aren't any angry lyrics. But what we do have is a love of a good melody and a set of thoughtful lyrics.

The band are a folkish/light jazz MOR act. With a bit of polish, some of their songs wouldn't sound out of place on the closing credits of a slushy Richard Gere film.

The songs on "Sudden Comfort" alternate between original compositions and covers of artists as diverse as Lionel Ritchie ("Easy") and the Dixie Chicks ("I Hope").

Act Naturally

As with the recently reviewed Shamooli Dawn, Edge of Blue do like their nature references: "The sky is far behind me and the waves are memories" ("Song for When I'm Gone"), "With a smile as wide as a sunset" ("Liar's Waltz") and "I'll be your summer rain" ("Winter Sun") are just three examples.

The original material on the album consists of songs of love, loss and hope for the future.

"Liar's Waltz", for example, is a poignant tale of a gradual loss of innocence. "A Thousand Years", meanwhile, is a song about never being able to forget your first love.

Elsewhere, the unusually upbeat, up-tempo "Ride My Train" is filled with the optimism of an unknown future: "You don't know where you're going/that's when you know you can't get lost". Plus it's got a funky saxophone solo.

Peter Griffin & Deb Jones

The Ex-Files

Not all the songs work. "Been Here Before" is described in the album's liner notes as "the closest thing we get to doing a comic song".

The song starts, promisingly enough with a fiddle-at-a-barn-dance introduction. However, when the lyrics begin, weaknesses creep through.

The song lists a history of ex-boyfriends who come from places with a vague alliterative or rhyming link to their names. While there may be a few Kevins in County Down, I doubt there are many Normans in Norway.

The climax of the song comes with a line about meeting the "man of my dreams" in Milton Keynes. Hmmmm.

All Covered Up

The covers on the album are sensitively handled treatments of the original artists' work.

The most obvious examples are Lionel Ritchie's "Easy" and Clint Ballard Junior's "You're No Good". But the Dixie Chicks and Michael Buble also get a look in with what the band themselves refer to as "tasteful" cover versions.

Edge of Blue will not be setting the nation on fire with a musical revolution any time soon, but that was never their intention.

In "Sudden Comfort" the band have produced a selection of songs which will undoubtedly please a broad cross section of music fans.

If you've ever enjoyed The Corrs, if you've ever been remotely interested in Billy Joel or Dina Carroll, this may very well be the album for you.

'Edge of Blue' are Peter Griffin and Deb Jones from Nailsworth.

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This article is an external contribution and expresses a personal opinion, not necessarily the views of the BBC.