Ten years in the making, Beth Gibbons’ solo album lived up to its title and meticulously found beauty in life’s pivotal moments of decline and regrowth. Capturing the ethereal charm that catapulted Portishead to fame, ‘Lives Outgrown’ isn’t only Gibbon’s most raw and grounding music to date, it’s also her most mesmerising.
Billed as her debut solo album, this feels like a more than worthy follow up to 2002’s amazing “Out of Season” (credited as a collaboration with Rustin Man). “Lives Outgrown” features production by another Talk Talk alumni, Lee Harris, and contains sonic ghosts of Gibbons‘ past; some haunting, subtle echoes of the anxious moods explored on Portishead’s Third – but there’s a general tilt away from the jazz and soul that has previously informed her work in favour of some kind of ancient British folk through a dreamlike prism. 30 years of music and not one single miss. A masterpiece.
Beth Gibbons Featuring 10 beautiful new songs recorded over a period of 10 years, the album was produced by James Ford and Beth Gibbons with additional production by Lee Harris (Talk Talk).
“Lives Outgrown” is, by some measure, Beth’s most personal work to date, the result of a period of sustained reflection and change — “lots of goodbyes,” in Beth’s words. Farewells to family, to friends, even to her former self. These are songs from the mid-course of life, when looking ahead no longer yields what it used to, and looking back has a sudden, sharper focus.
The Fat Angel Sings 