I have had in my possession for some time now a promotional copy of Howard James Kenny’s first single release, Insects, but for one reason or another had not got round to putting pen to paper over it [other than an exchange with Honch about how good it was].  Life interrupted the time I would have devoted to sitting down with headphones on and getting intimate with the songs, and for this reason, what should have been a pre-release review is now being put together on the day of release of the full album Shelter Songs.  On downloading the pre-release tracks, my computer very ‘helpfully’ organised them alphabetically.  However, I am a firm believer that an album should be first approached in the order the artist intended, and this conviction was proved correct for me when I listened to the songs as an album through Bandcamp. Something I had been slightly ambivalent about previously now made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and it was a wonderful experience – it made sense in the intended context.  A good album should draw you in from the beginning, then hold you, and – clichéd as it sounds - take you on a journey through the songs until you arrive at the other side of it, rewarded.  An album is sometimes a lot more than a collection of songs.  The songs, once put together, take on a new context which they don’t have when heard individually. Shelter Songs is what I would call a good album – it works as a whole and it's a beautiful, moving and uplifting thing.