Katie Spencer – What Love Is Review

Comfortable folk tones are not to be taken for granted. What Katie Spencer offers on her third album, What Love Is, is an improvement on her preceding records. Given other releases from today, it may be a worry to see the wider scope of love as a topic for an album. But Spencer has offered delicate details before and does so again with What Love Is, an astonishing piece of work which gets to grips with the fundamentals of acoustic music. A tremendously enjoyable album is what Spencer has on her hands here, and that will come as no surprise to those keeping tabs on the folk music scene. Reviving those wonderful tones by traipsing the countryside and connecting with heartfelt desire, it’s a harder adaptation to make than it sounds. What Love Is makes it brilliantly though, an effective and inspiring piece of work from Spencer. It’s the detail within that matters most, those inspiring spots which capture the joys of acoustic folk.  

What Love Is goes beyond genre expectations though as it reaches for lively inspirations. Spencer is comfortable in the quiet. That much is crucial to What Love Is. In those softer moments is a tenderness you cannot get from many other musicians. Her title track is strong, but it’s Come Back and Find Me and the third track, Forget Me Not, highlights the sincerity Spencer so often offers in her music. Openness is half the battle for any songwriter and Spencer has no trouble offering that throughout What Love Is. She is not attempting to give a definitive answer to the loose question which forms her title, but offers tremendous examples of what love could be. Spencer proves what many are also offering with their work, that music does not have to come from forced hardship or complete devastation. Her poetry in motion comes from the beauty of life and the pursuit of what love is.  

That forms an incredible foundation for her third studio album, a must-listen for fans of contemporary folk. There’s a broader instrumental style at play here, a deeper motion from those softer instrumental flourishes. You can hear it on Stranger, the best track on the album thanks to its capturing and confident spotlighting of such a delicate feeling. Spencer has done the impossible with What Love Is and cut through the noise. Many would find comfort in that but the brilliance of What Love Is is what it can do without the layers of sound. When the heart can be heard beating without distraction, you get songs like Cold Stone and Goodbye. Songs of hardship and tough farewells, but all delivered with a phenomenal vocal range and instrumental appeal. Spencer is responsible for some of the best folk music being made right now, and that quality continues on What Love Is.  

Spencer continues to push the capabilities of folk as a genre. Her near six-minute album closer, Carry It All, is a moody masterclass which leans into the stripped-back strengths of What Love Is. Confidence is right at the heart of this album release, one which has Spencer detailing the crushing blows of romance and loss all with the familiar folk tone. Her innovations are clear as she brings in more than just an acoustic guitar to these songs, with shifting instrumentals backing a hope of warmth yet to return. A few soft blasts of harmonica on Carry It All, the subtlety of new instruments in small pockets, seals it. Another phenomenal achievement in a truly underrated discography. What Love Is has a few moments which drift into the blues, and it’s there that Spencer uncovers the real heart of modern folk. It’s a fascinating experience, and one of the best modern folk albums out there.