Album review: Eddi Reader - The Songs of Robert Burns

***

ROUGH TRADE, £10.76

THIS is not a new release as such but, as we are all going Robert Burns crazy in this Year of Homecoming, why shouldn't Reader capitalise on the increased focus on the Bard with a "deluxe" edition of her 2003 collection of Burns interpretations?

There are seven additional songs on this re-release to sit alongside the fine original selection, including the fond celebration of Green Grow The Rashes-O, the yearning Aye Waukin-O and the tender Of A' The Airts, but no great surprises as Reader chooses to render all in the same polite, lilting, fragrant and pleasant manner in which she has approached all of Burns's work to date.