"She has poured her heart and soul into her new album" Evening Standard
“I love the girl she used to be but I think I love even more the woman she’s become. Still mischievous and playful, still a siren, but there’s an ache in her voice now that has me with a glass at my ear to the wall of her world where trouble has entered the room. There’s an erotic power here that’s not just feminine power. She makes truth telling an invitation to intimacy.” Bono
“I’ve never met anyone quite like Imelda May. She is full of life…I was inspired by her honesty and her generosity, and I continue to be intrigued.” T Bone Burnett
Imelda May reveals her stunning new album cover as she officially announces her fifth studio record, entitled ‘Life. Love. Flesh. Blood’, to be released on Decca Records on 7th April.
It is clear that one of Ireland’s biggest exports has found a new groove, here presenting the most personal and intimately autobiographical album she has ever written. The album is produced by the legendary T Bone Burnett, who said of Imelda:
“When I first happened onto her music, she was a punky Irish Rockabilly singer with a great band. When I ran across her several years later, she had gone through a change of lives and was writing about it with a wild intensity and singing about it in the most open hearted way” – T Bone Burnett
Recorded over seven days in Los Angeles, the album features musical contributions from guitar hero Jeff Beck (on ‘Black Tears’), piano legend Jools Holland (on ‘When It’s My Time’) and an accomplished group of backing musicians including the core trio of guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), drummer Jay Bellerose (Elton John & Leon Russell, Ray Lamontagne) and bassist Zach Dawes (The Last Shadow Puppets, Mini Mansions), the same band that recorded Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand.
The album marks a new direction for May who, in the time since her 2014 release Tribal, ended her marriage of eighteen years. Imelda May’s new sound sits firmly outside of any sharply defined genre box, widely spanning blues, rock, soul, gospel and jazz. 'Life, Love, Flesh, Blood' breathes new life into a classic sound, with Imelda’s powerhouse vocal as distinctive as ever, cementing her position as one of the strongest vocalists of her generation. The singer herself describes the record as her most "honest" yet. Imelda’s life changed considerably in the run up to recording, and this is documented in the only way she knew how. “It's therapy, like keeping a diary that a lot of people read. Some of my favorite songs don’t say much, but they reveal everything.” Imelda explains.
