JOSH RITTER

"Now my work is done,

I feel I'm owed some joy,

Oh Imogen and Abelard,

I'm your homeward boy".

So begins "Bright Smile", the first track of one of the most incredible CDs I have ever had the privilege of listening to, or, for that matter, owning.

Josh Ritter is the singer-songwriter responsible for the majestic beauty that is "Hello Starling" and it's the sort of CD that gives you that warm feeling all over. As you hear each of his songs and as its melody works its way into your brain, you feel like your life has just been enriched.

His songs are of a timeless quality - the sort that I for one thought that only Bob Dylan could write. Close your eyes and listen to "You don't make it easy babe", and it could easily be The Master at work.

I thought I'd seen every conceivable way to say how much a woman means to you, but this opening line "All the other girls are the stars, you are the northern lights" is exquisite. A beautiful, beautiful expression of love that in one fell swoop knocks the poety of Robert Burns, or wordplay of Shakespeare, into a cocked hat.

It's strange to think that songs like these can have been written by the offspring of 2 neuroscientists from Moscow. Of course the Moscow in question is in the US state of Idaho, but his parents were quite clearly of a scientific bent. They made such an impression on him he fully intended pursuing a career in medicine.

That was the plan, but with his debut recording, itself with the nostalgic and emotive title "Golden Age of Radio", he immediately established himself as a very special talent.

Josh can make even the most melancholic of ideas seem vibrant and effervescent, describing the disappearance of snow with "birds beneath my window dustying their wings upon the lawn" paints a wonderfully vivid picture of exactly that!

Likewise in "Burning Man" he describes a man in a chaotic downward spiral of his own making - yet the song is so uplifting and, well... positive. You can sense that here is a man "burning at both ends" who in accepting the consequences of his own failings, refuses to let those keep him down. He'll be back, but he wants to do it on his own terms. He doesn't want to drag other well-meaning people down with him. We, as listeners, can learn from this, and it the sort of song that echoes through your head long after you have heard it.

Josh Ritter will be a star of that I have no doubt, but for now he is certainly a SPIRITUAL WEIGHTLIFTER.