Single Review: Ladyhawke – Black White and Blue
It’s been 3 long years since New Zealand’s Ladyhawke (aka Pip Brown) released her self-titled debut album and we were dancing to the rhythms of ‘Paris is Burning’ and ‘My Delirium’. (Don’t lie. I know you were tapping your toes to those songs. Even in America I’ll hear one of these come on the PA while I’m trying on clothes in Express.) It’s been a long wait but we’ve now been assured by the lady herself that the new album ‘Anxiety’, to be released on 19 March, will be “is a more straight-up guitar record”. Frankly, for someone who liked the synthy dance goodness of her debut, this is the sort of comment that straight up terrifies me.
Yesterday evening, Zane Lowe premiered the new single as his Hottest Record in the World feature on Radio1. The ‘Black White and Blue’ of the title refers to celestial skies and isn’t an obvious play on America’s flag. Maybe it was because yesterday there was talk about how Noel Gallagher was going to receive NME’s Godlike Genius Award of 2012, but I’m hearing trippy echoes of Oasis in here. While the guitars are admirable, there is tapping and a lot of “oh noes” peppered in through the lacklustre melody, and there is a chilly, sci-fi vibe throughout with bleepy synths. I was keen on the glitchy Shortwave Set-like effects at the start, but I was disappointed with those rocket noises going off during the chorus. Both lyrically and instrumentally, it’s nothing special.
6/10
‘Black White and Blue’, the new single from Ladyhawke, will be released on the 20th of February. ‘Anxiety’, her second album, will be released in early March.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8rLNG9Ma8o[/youtube]
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