Claire Hamill 2026
Shedding the silence she used to wear like a shield, Hastings’ most mellifluous inhabitant hunts for fresh tunes en plein air.
A House Among The Trees
When she started out, at seventeen, Claire Hamill was a little precious thing; today, as a septuagenarian, the English singer-songwriter should be treated as a national treasure. However, instead of seeing herself in such a flattering – and perhaps, creatively flattening – light, she’s become playfully provocative as the decades went by. So while some listeners might want to perceive “A House Among The Trees” – which emerged 55 years after Claire’s debut, “One House Left Standing” – as a homecoming record, it’s not. It’s as outgoing a platter as any adventurous endeavor is – and not for nothing it’s Ms. Hamill’s second album with a combo of her own. Though the lady’s last solo release, "A Pocket Full Of Love Songs" from 2022, paved the way to the group’s first offering, 2025’s “Troubadour” still hinted at her personal turmoil, and she had to issue this set of pieces to fully embrace the collective’s potential in bringing her fantasies to life.
Claire clearly needed a robust ensemble to unleash her indomitable spirit in the Spanish-Gypsy vibe of the contagious “My Snakeskin Lover” with its melody shifting between the number’s two distinct halves and imaginative lyrics – those who thought Hamill couldn’t be more poetically risqué than she was on “Sex With A Stranger” will rejoice in her having “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi teeth” now. And if Sean Elliott’s exquisite six-string passages fuel the dame’s passion here, his riffs also feed the epic folk tension of “The Werewolf And The Maiden” where she’s entering the Brothers Grimm lore to stitch the past and present into a single tapestry. Here’s the cloth throbbing with reserved optimism in “The Beautiful” that belligerently opens the album and pitches the chanteuse’s strum and voice against Sonny Flint’s marching drums and orchestral keyboards to best express, and expose, her sentiments. But then there are the hymnal “It’s Really You” and the rocking “Intoxicating” – both demonstrating a life-affirming electric crunch, but the harmonica-oiled latter also featuring a juicy wigout from WISHBONE ASH’s axeman Mark Abrahams – and “Wings Of Freedom” which majestically rolls on the gentle waves of David Knopfler’s piano and Hammond.
Claire can harbor contemplative hope in “Up To The Moon” or take stock of her heart affairs in “Obsession” that bolsters it all with a slider-polished country twang before “Cool” – another piece revealing a facet of the warbler’s psyche – enhances Hamill’s vocal swagger and behind-the-scene smile with delicate layers of arresting Americana. Quite logical, given the next chapter of her journey is “Your Name Is In The Wind” which paints tempestuous emotions in bold strokes and namechecks various gales. Yet the steps towards the carpe-diem finale of “All We Have Is Now” – that wraps the subject of belonging in anthemic uplift – begin with the brass-splashed sheen of “Don’t Go Home Without Me”: the esteemed artiste’s reason for refusing to return to base. Looking for her shine, she’s kept on the move by love, what else? Long may she run!
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