Music album review: Mo Kenney

Mo Kenney is a native of Nova Scotia. Her self-titled debut album was recorded with the veteran Canadian musician, Joel Plaskett, at Scotland Yard, his studio in Dartmouth. It’s a joint effort, with Plaskett co-writing three of the songs and the two performing all the instruments. A measure of their earnestness is that they used analogue equipment and tape, not digital.

The album opens with Eden, and Sucker, acceptable ditties that feature Kenney’s finger-picked guitar and soft, yet assertive vocals. The third track, ‘The Great Escape,’ is more interesting. The song begins like the others — with Kenney crooning over a medieval-style arpeggio — but then, a minute in, the drums and electric guitar kick in, and the thing shifts a gear. It’s the first time you sense what Kenney is capable of, and just when she lays into the most gorgeous “la-dah-dah dah-dah-dah”, the song is over, all two minutes and six seconds of it.