Rianne Downey – The Consequence of Love – 17/10/25

Before the release of her debut album, most punters would have known Rianne Downey as the latest female vocalist to accompany pub-aficionado Paul Heaton on his live shows. Her duet with Heaton on ‘Quicksand’ is a testimony to what makes them work so well: Downey’s dulcet vocals temper the acerbity of the Housemartins frontman’s wit, tied up neatly in a three-minute Mockney knees-up; she is the effervescence to Heaton’s pickled egg and bitter.

The satire has been stripped away for The Consequence of Love, positing Downey in the land of hearty country and finger-plucked folk – on the album cover quite literally, standing in a white dress with a guitar, flowers in her hair, valleys (possibly in Downey’s home county of North Lanarkshire) rolling far behind. Here, the themes range across the primary emotions, the songwriting trinity of loss, longing and love. It’s not the kind of album where Downey would sing ‘we’re fuckwits, we’re idiots’, or, heaven forfend, mention Laurence Fox.

Instead, The Consequence of Love dances between the poppier and the more traditional, toeing the line of modern country music’s wider accessibility while not compromising the authentic of Downey’s Celtic roots. ‘The Song of Old Glencoe’ is an obvious example of the latter, Downey’s wistful ‘too-loor-a-lie-o’s punctuating a romantic portrayal of her homeland. On the other side, ‘Blue Eyes Burnin’ starts with an 80s keyboard and builds into a simple chorus of ‘it’s a beautiful life/it’s a beautiful night’.

However, forgiving the ‘misty mountains’ of ‘Glencoe’ as adherence to a folky motif, there are still a few too many platitudes across this album for it to truly distinguish itself. Downey’s voice is luscious enough to breathe life into some, but others – ‘your smile/Cloud Nine/divine’ – wither in the spotlight of stripped-back production. When every word is so beautifully delivered, the weakest lyrics feel like being served a Rustlers burger at a Bib Gourmand.

These are few and far between, though. The titular track is a wonderful rumination on relationships, while ‘Nothing Better’ stands as a cross between Belle and Sebastian and Alexandra Savior, tenderly melodious and intensely personal. The Consequence of Love is an album to gee you up, to raise the optimism within you as sharply as acid reflux. As a debut LP, it should put Rianne Downey onto the radar of every pop folk fan.

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