Po Girl, as the name suggests is an all female band. The album 'Home to You' is really laid back, with a down home country style vibe about it. It contains beautiful melodies from some talented ladies, with a strong acoustic guitar presence.

The instruments are an interesting mix. Acoustic guitar, violin, clarinet, banjo, wash-tub bass, harmonica, trumpet, hammond organ, harp. Like I said, a really interesting assortment and how often do you get to hear a harp outside of classical music?

It kind of makes you appreciate the amazing instruments that have been around for thousands of years, and sadly are under-utilised in modern times outside of classical orchestras and movie scores.

Anyhow, the lyrics of 'home to you' with their lyrical elements drawn from living in the south of the United States come together to form a wonderful album. I don't know where the band members actually live, I'm just going by the lyrics.
Songs such as 'skies of grey', 'old mountain line' 'aint life sweet' have a sort or romantic intimacy about them, listening to the album you get the feeling of sitting around in a bar part of a small but intimate audience soaking up the atmosphere, rich with delightfully slow paced beautiful songs.

Many of the albums lyrics have a heartfelt sombre tone to them, like in 'Angels of Grace'

here i am with a half-empty bottle of pain
sittin' down with loneliness upon me again
but if I could find heaven instead of this place
i would leave town with sweet angels of grace

While not as gutsy, or quite as full of emotional angst as Jewel, I recommend Po Girl for fans of Jewel, as their styles are similar and I like both artists. But then I like a bit of everything.

Well, 'home to you' is another review type item that I prejudged with the label of "Oh God, not country music."
Fortunately I was wrong, the album I really enjoyed right from the first time my ears half listened to it, and twenty times later I still enjoyed listening to it. That fact reminds me that although any of us have our preferences in music, there is always exceptions to that - there are things we like even though they fall in a genre we don't typically listen to.
For example - I don't particularly like country music, or rap music. But I like Po Girl and I like Public Enemy. I think it's the same for any music genre when you have an open mind about things, at the end of the day there are a whole heck of a lot of things to enjoy in this world so why not try the aural listening enjoyment that is Po Girl.

You can rock out to the awesome Clarinet solos… well I did, in my favourite song 'Till it's Gone'

"Thank God for the kind of happiness you can't explain" What the heck is a 'Po' anyhow?

Overall: 8.0