Helena describes ‘Unbroken’ as an album about love, heartache, troubles in life and coming through the other side. It’s about relatable experiences that Helena and other people have gone through in life as well as her own battles with her brain tumour. It boasts 4 top 10 hits from the UK country iTunes charts as well as a stripped back ballad and a live acoustic recording with just Helena and her guitar.
Hometown gets this album off to a great start. Its a song with a real summery feel. I can almost smell the salty sea air and see the sand castles on the beach as I listen to it.
I’ll Never Let You Down brings the tempo down considerably. The acoustic guitar is beautifully finger picked throughout and synth compliments it and fills the sound out perfectly. Helena’s soft vocals and harmonies are quite prominent throughout this song.
This Time picks the tempo back up again. Its a song about a break-up. As with all the songs Helena sings, her vocal is crystal clear making it really easy for the listener to work out the narrative behind each song on the album. This is so important for storytelling songs as they are in country music.
Save It For Another Day opens with a strummed acoustic guitar and a really precisely played mouth organ. Synth is then introduced to fill out the sound and help the song build in intensity before the piano comes in with a whole strings section and some gorgeous haunting harmonies. This is a really beautiful song and one of my favourites on this album.
Come On Home gets your foot tapping along. Its about thinking about relationship that you have been in after its broken down. You can see the other person in your dreams. Very relatable. We have all been here at one time or another. I can hear a determination in Helena’s voice during the bridge.
Title track Unbroken has tinkling piano in the forefront of the song. Dramatic drums give this song a slightly rocky feel which I absolutely love. I really want to see Helena perform this song live with a band and a choir. Its immense and definitely my favourite track.
As The Sun Sets is a live acoustic performance. The vocal has a haunting feel because it is so lovely and echoey. This track is a nice bonus. Stripped back and laid bare it shows something of Helena’s personality. Runaround has a lovely guitar riff that runs throughout. This song was a single and is the story of an on off relationship. I can hear some 60’s influences running through it with the guitar tones and chord progressions.
Dramatic piano chords introduce Take Me Away. Its a lilting ballad and Helena has a slightly different vocal sound during this song. At the start I thought I had chosen a song from another artist from my downloads but it is definitely the right one. This is one of those songs that you want to put your headphones on, turn up the volume, close your eyes and just get engrossed in the total overall song experience. Its gorgeous.
Tangled Up has that lovely 60’s sounding guitar and also a lovely tinkling piano running throughout.
I am so glad I get to listen to this song twice. Unbroken the piano version. It has a completely different feel to the other version. This version puts me in mind of Kate Bush in her heyday.
This is a really great album. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
