The debut of Janet Devlin has been in my anticipation since her elimination on X-Factor UK a couple years ago. She was unlike everyone who's ever been on one of these elongated audition shows. Her voice is fragile, sweet and brilliant. Hide & Seek is the title of the vehicle that will hopefully shoot this incredible talent into the stratosphere where she deserves to go. The album opens what I'm hopeful this set of songs is going to be "Wonderful" a bright sunshine pop ditty that immediately makes me smile. A little outside of what I expected but Janet shines through as magnificently as she did the day I watched her audition. The interesting thing about this album is that Janet doesn't allow the pop mainstream hit machine to invade what she does. This isn't the vision of a production team of the pathetic team of vanilla pedestrian writers and handlers from the reality music show. This is Janet Devlin and her gift being delivered honestly and to the best she could.
The production on this album is incredible the music and the vocal are balanced to absolute precision and is presented perfectly on "Walk Away" a sour sweet and tender song letting her emotions through to stab you in the heart with a shot of heartache and passion. With nothing to dislike on Hide & Seek I can't give it much more than just say this is a five star album and it has delivered everything I hoped for and anticipated for all this time. This doesn't happen often when something lives up to what you build up in your head and Janet Devlin's Hide & Seek album has done that and more.
Excellence personified!
