{"id":11890,"date":"2025-01-31T21:13:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T21:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipamusic.co.uk\/?p=11890"},"modified":"2025-04-22T21:14:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T20:14:47","slug":"carol-hodge-makes-her-most-personal-album-yet-in-effortless-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipamusic.co.uk\/?p=11890","title":{"rendered":"Carol Hodge makes her most personal album yet in EffortLess InSecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ALBUM REVIEW: Carol Hodge – EffortLess InSecurity (Midnight Stamp Records)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Crass collaborator Carol Hodge is back with her fifth studio album, and if you thought you knew what to expect from her by now, think again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps best known for her backing vocals and keyboard work with the Steve Ignorant Band and The Wildhearts, she’s an accomplished singer-songwriter in her own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, the self-described ‘seven-fingered pianist’ has made her darkest album yet, and her lyrics feel more forthright and personal than ever, perhaps because it was written as she was beginning a new relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EffortLess InSecurity<\/em> is a deep dive into stoner rock territory, illuminated by bursts of piano-led prog and her wonderfully versatile voice.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It opens with first singles Manoeuvres<\/em>, the heaviest song on the album. Confrontational from the start, it asks “Do you want to go 10 rounds with me?” as it calls out people being fake, particularly in their online presence – something we’ve all come across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gimme A Break<\/em> is a proggy ramble through the build-up of mental pressure and desire to escape from it. She sings: “As for the darkness I\u2019ve been there, I\u2019ve seen it\/I\u2019ve smelt it, I don\u2019t wanna go back.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hodge’s yearning voice is to the fore in the contemplative I’ll Do The Begging<\/em>, which deals with forgiveness and asks why people feel it’s important to be right, rather than being ready to forgive and forget?<\/p>\n\n\n

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Small Crumbs<\/em>, another single, is about how some people accept their lot in life all too easily, thinking “nothing’s going to go my way”, instead of carrying hopes and aspirations. Like many of Hodge’s songs, it goes off in several different directions, which is what makes her hard to pigeonhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The autistic trait of masking, which Hodge admits she’s done in the past, is the subject of Queen Of Fitting In<\/em>, released as the second single last September. She finally accepted at the age of 42 that she’s neurodiverse, and it’s OK to be different, and she hopes the song will help others when she sings: “I know when to smile and when to turn away again.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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