Rosie’s excellent debut album ‘When We Were Small’ in 2002 marked her out as a delicate singer/songwriter whose songs are all about creating moods and imagery rather than being full of vocal and instrumental pyrotechnics. This new disc continues the theme but with one obvious change – her vocals are much higher in the mix, and rather than the voice and words being lost in the instrumentation they are conspicuously clearer this time around. This is certainly a change for the better as one valid criticism of her earlier discs was they lacked dynamics, the more prominent vocals go a long way to resolving this issue.
This more assured approach really works well, and rather than the disc becoming an album of similar sounding songs the ten tracks all feel different enough to maintain the listener’s interest.
A truly distinctive and delicate singer, Thomas’ vocals are beautifully smooth and effortless, and for this disc they sound less fragile and childlike which is wholly appropriate as lyrically the songs have a ‘bigger’ feel than her previous output.
There’s a definite theme to the songs, there are three obvious songs relating to New York and almost all the tracks relate to friendships and feelings – it never gets overly sweet though as she’s a skilful writer with an eye for wry observation.
Acoustic guitar dominates the disc, but there’s a really good and varied range of backing throughout, and she’s joined by Sufjan Stevens on many tracks, and Damien Jurado and Denison Witmer also provide support.
Excellent liner notes cover the background of each song in detail and add even more to the atmosphere and imagery that the album creates.
Rosie Thomas is a fascinating artist and ‘These Friends of Mine’ is an equally fascinating disc, beautifully light in touch in every area and a disc that can wash over the listener without any effort – what it lacks in musical pyrotechnics and diversity, it makes up for in charm, accessibility and warmth.

Track listing
1 If This City Never Sleeps
2 Why Waste More Time?
3 The One I Love
4 Much Farther To Go
5 Paper Doll
6 Kite Song
7 Songbird
8 All The Way To New York City
9 Say Hello
10 These Friends Of Mine

£12.99