She sounds instantly familiar, but it’s just your memory playing tricks with echoes of Patsy Cline and Peggy Lee drifting down the ether from 40 years ago, compounded by the ’50s atmosphere lovingly reconstructed by producer Liam Watson. “The Luckiest Girl” and its sitar belong in 1965, but everything else is stuck in a roadhouse during the Eisenhower years, where the juke is stacked with blues and heartbreak. Golightly’s voice is irresistibly fragile, her lyrics possessing the simplicity and crystal clarity (“turning to embers is all I remember”) of country at its best, and the combination makes for shivery magic.
PETER HOGAN
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