The Sunday Times
Clive Davis
Her Finest yet. The angelic Peak District singer has already carved a place at the forefront of home-grown folk, but this represents an extraordinary leap forward. Her voice remains feathery – it's occasionally overstretched – but the produce, Ben Seal, has added elegiac brass arrangements, as well as haunting electronica and delicately etched banjo figures. Drums rumble and growl in the distance. Hardy's pensive lyrics, introspective and sometime melancholic, touch new depths. Edging deeper into pop singer-songwriter terrain, she has created nothing short of a masterpiece.