First appeared on Never Enough Notes on October 29 2010

22 is not as young as it used to be in a music industry where as long as a child can talk (or at least make a noise) it has the potential of a hit single, but it is still an impressive age to have played with Paul McCartney.

While studying at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts McCool performed in front of Macca who was compelled to pick up an acoustic guitar and play along. She also lists Chris Martin and Mark Radcliffe among her fans and was head hunted to work with Steve Levine after he was on the judging panel for the young songwriters’ Make It Break It award – which she won.

This EP is short, only three songs, but it is clear a lot of thought has gone into it; each track is perfectly crafted, planned from beginning middle to end. The first two tracks: Shoot Shoot and Prophecy, with its mournful strings, are very dreamy but with a slightly dark edge.

McCool’s acoustic sound is slightly wild and conjures up images in my head of dark woodlands, the type you would expect beautiful elves to wander around. Sure enough, I am not the only one to have had this thought and a quick Google image search for McCool shows she does indeed have an ethereal quality about her and has been photographed among the flora.

If this EP is a taster of what’s to come then the future certainly looks interesting for McCool and hopefully as her confidence (or other peoples confidence in her) grows the music might start to sound more free and that wild, mysterious edge will become more obvious than some otherworldly photographs.

7/10