7/10

When Anna Calvi dropped her 2018 LP 'Hunter', it was greeted as one of the best records of her career so far. With a bold and fresh feeling running throughout, the original collection had a presence that almost seemed larger than life itself. So it was always clear that she wouldn't be ready to move on from these songs straight away and has in fact looked to bring in a wealth of talent to help reimagine her original recordings as artists such as Courtney Barnett, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julia Holder and IDLES' Joe Talbot join her for 'Hunted', a raw and honest reinvention of her previous work.

While 'Hunter' was always seen as a more progressive and atmospheric release, 'Hunted' plans to approach these songs with almost the opposite of intentions. Keeping instrumentation to a minimum throughout, each of these new compositions look to add a more fragile and haunting direction than we heard before. Yet while the string of guest acts on here focus our attention most, each of them understands the more sombre and downtrodden attitude Calvi is going for on this record, and so keep their performances in line with the darker and more ethereal feeling of this new collection.

Fans of 'Hunter' will obviously been keen to hear what she has managed to do with those songs, but honestly 'Hunted' still manages to hold its own as its own unique set of ideas. Rather than a simple revamp of her older work, Anna Calvi is demonstrating the diversity of these singles, creating something new from something old, and showing the complexity of emotion that a simple change to production can do.