Indescribable Night
ALLSAINTS ASCD25
Q Review
August 1995

Bliss. The promise is implied in the exquisite harp figures of the opening track, insinuated in the smoky chanson of the second, and fully realised in the third where St John is re-united with her old Ravishing Beauties partner Virginia Astley for a spooky promise of undying devotion. A perfect moment, it shouldn't really happen again in the confines of one album but it does, several times. When the over-melismatic duet with George Fame doesn't quite come off, the perfectly structured Wherefore Art Thou compensates. Similarly, the salon whimsy of Variety Lights is placed deliberately as a pool of illumination, only to be shut off by the dark empathic ache of On The Bridge which, in turn, is moderated by the sweetest of yearning love songs, Indescribable Night. In the past, St John's certain kind of magic has enhanced Dream Academy, Van Morrison and Julian Cope, to name a few. Finally, the essence is distilled.

Johnny Black