The Anchoress

Welsh songwriter and producer Catherine Anne Davies aka The Anchoress, has found a room of her own beneath pop’s playground, in the basement of prog’s castle, creating her one-woman sonic vision.

Whilst her debut won awards and critical acclaim, the follow-up, The Art of Losing (released in March 2021) successfully transformed those wall-to-wall critical plaudits into a Top 40 position in the album charts, as well as the #1 spot on iTunes.

Produced and written by Davies, The Art of Losing was created in the aftermath of several years of huge personal loss, after the untimely death of her father, undergoing treatment for cervical cancer, and navigating baby loss, the record follows Dylan Thomas’ instruction to “rage against the dying of the light” - and there is nothing sonically “gentle” about its enquiry.

The album tackles death and trauma with a defiant optimism, firmly concerned with how to find purpose in the midst of grief: “Was there some purpose to losing my mind?”, she asks on the title track. At the emotional centre of the album is ‘5am’ - a brutally simple song that looks at the visceral physical impact of sexual assault, centred around Davies’ own assault as a teenager.

It is a a sonically ambitious album that is helmed by Davies on sole production duties - a move she said felt both natural and necessary after having a “side hussle” in engineering/producing for others. The Art of Losing also features guest appearances from James Dean Bradfield (Manics) as well as legendary drummer Sterling Campbell (David Bowie, Duran Duran).

As a voracious devourer of words and music, the concept of her Prog Award-winning debut married her love of literature with a dark sense of humour. The Observer called it "a compelling & blackly witty break up album", while PROG hailed it as "Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love updated for the 21st century". It was named amongst the Guardian critics’ Albums of the Year, won HMV’s Welsh Album of the Year, Best Newcomer at the PROG awards, and a nomination for Welsh Music Prize.

It also caught the ear of various musicians including Robert Smith of The Cure (who personally invited her to play at his Meltdown Festival) and perhaps - most significantly - her childhood heroes, Manic Street Preachers.

Davies’ diverse talents as an arranger and multi-instrumentalist have been put to use across a range of other projects, most recently via the collaborative album In Memory of My Feelings with Bernard Butler and duetting with the Manic Street Preachers on Resistance Is Futile. She also brought a new generation of ears to Simple Minds, where she spent much of the last four years recording and touring on keys/vocals, before departing in 2019.


Critical praise for The Anchoress:

"Skewers the messy, chaotic nature of grief. Intense…” ☆☆☆☆ NME
"Davies has given a powerful, challenging voice to her grief.” ☆☆☆☆ THE OBSERVER
"A brave and inspirational album.” SUNDAY TIMES - ALBUM OF THE WEEK
"Cuts latter-day Bowie art rock shapes." ☆☆☆☆ MOJO
"Intense, insistent and inspired. Existential torment has never sounded so alluring…" ☆☆☆☆☆ PROG
"Shining alt-pop from an artisan of darkness. A bold voice in the darkest shadows." ☆☆☆☆ RECORD COLLECTOR
"Quotable, immersive, moving, imaginative, delicate, and dramatic. A stellar achievement.” 9/10 THE QUIETUS
"A defiant and glorious second album.... An intensely compelling record."☆☆☆☆ CLASSIC POP
"A lyrically bold, musically lush art rock investigation of grief… like Chrissie Hynde and David Bowie on a synth-pop death trip.” THE TELEGRAPH - ALBUM OF THE WEEK
"Swaggering synthpop... Infectiously buoyant." ☆☆☆☆ UNCUT
"Determined and rapturous. 9/10.” THE LINE OF BEST FIT - ALBUM OF THE WEEK
"Serious, accomplished art rock." ☆☆☆☆ THE TIMES
"Grief and loss are its themes, rendered in handsomely wrought tones of orchestral rock.” ☆☆☆☆ FT
"Davies’ voice, like Annie Lennox’s, mixes vulnerability with verve. She gets to the heart of grief, showing it’s not so much five stages as six emotions at the same time. And she turns it into something life-enhancing.” ☆☆☆☆ MAIL ON SUNDAY - ALBUM OF THE WEEK
"The Welsh Renaissance woman harnesses grief, fury, and love of storytelling on a compelling sequel.” 8/10 CLASH

"A devastatingly powerful voice ☆☆☆☆" MOJO
"Davies is making music like nobody else at the moment." NME
"One of the year’s most affecting records... a collection of songs that sets a high bar for intense, soul-tearing pop music. 9/10." THE LINE OF BEST FIT
"Addresses the peaks and troughs of love, commitment and betrayal...Fascinating." SUNDAY TIMES
"A rich and complex debut...a blackly witty breakup album...Compelling." THE OBSERVER
"A flawless and sophisticated hyper-literate pop record." GQ
"Karen Carpenter singing John Grant." UNCUT
"Hounds Of Love, updated for the 21st century." PROG
"A record which could sneak big ideas past the listeners of daytime radio." Q
"Rich and satisfyingly poptastic." THE QUIETUS