LUX LYALL – ALBUM REVIEW

Lux Lyall – Vamp (Gamblers All) 

Release Date: Out Now

The concepts of luxury and style run through the middle of this album like letters through the middle of whatever is the high-class version of a stick of rock. ‘Vamp’ is the debut offering from London based artist Lux Lyall and if you haven’t come across her music before then you are in for a real treat. The album opens on ‘Mad With The Moon’, a tune that sets out its ambitious stall from the get-go with sweeping strings, a driving beat and moody guitars laying out the red carpet for Lyall’s sultry vocal tones. We are off and we are running – but in heels. ‘Switchblade Baby’ has a sombre Bond-esque quality as Lyall sleepily drawls through a dead-eyed ballad of deadly effect before ‘Teeth’ steps up the noircore with dirty guitars and snarled vocals pitched somewhere between Courtney Love and Shirley Manson.

There’s a bit of a theme of harsh titles juxtaposing with luxurious songs and ‘Gun Metal Horses’ is a prime example of this as the sound of those luscious strings are met with a late-night beat to create the seductive of moods. Recent single ‘Baby Is A Vamp’ retains all its dramatic splendour and duskiness while ‘Here’s to You’ is a spoken word lament that would fit in to a David Lynch dream sequence quite perfectly. There’s a Lynchian vibe to this whole album, in fact, and ‘Kitty Collins’ is the kind of slow shoe shuffle that you’d expect to hear at the Bang Bang Bar with Lyall enchanting with her vocals as the guitars and drums lean on each other for support as they stagger home.

A scratchy news report about the capture of Bonnie and Clyde introduces the moody guitar of ‘Ritual’ and you can hear the spurs clinking as the tumble weed blows through in front of the saloon bar – cinematic doesn’t quite cover it. There is an easing of the intensity on ‘Wayward Girls and Wicked Women’ which finds our heroine singing to an audience of sinners and lost souls in late night club where smoking is still allowed. ‘Hotel Bar’ has a delicious guitar sound that perfectly matches those dreamy vocals to lull you in to shore like so many siren songs. The album closes out on ‘Waiting Room’, a song that tempts you to turn up the volume to hear the delicate opening strains before being blasted away by the kind grunge-power-ballad that Veruca Salt used to bash out back in the day. Lux Lyall is a force to be reckoned with and this album is the kind of collection that makes you want to circle back to the beginning as soon as it’s finished as there’s so much to unpack. As far as albums go, this is going to be hard to top in 2020 and as far as debuts go, well, this is very special.

More information: https://www.facebook.com/luxlyallofficial/

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