James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
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However, with all the expectation of being the sound of the year, the task of living up to this must be very daunting. In fact looking back on previous lists it appears that each year the top artist is eclipsed by one lower down, such as last year’s champion Little Boots being overshadowed by fellow list features Lady Gaga, La Roux and Florence + The Machine. Can Ellie Goulding rise above this and produce the debut album that we all want her to?
Debut album Lights juggles the three genres of folk, electronica and pop. Over the course of 10 tracks, this feels somewhat amorphous, and as you reach the final track ‘Salt Skin’ they have become so intertwined that the sound which has been produced is hard to describe. The two singles that preceded the album each tried to demonstrate Goulding’s vocals with both songs barely possessing more than three seconds without some form of her voice being layered atop the textures. In both ‘Under the Sheets’ and ‘Starry Eyed’ this worked rather well as they became the musical equivalent of a sherbet where the tracks were both brief and yet led to a large pop-style sugar rush. The B-Side ‘Fighter Plane’ from her first release, however, is possibly the most emotional and beautiful thing she has produced to date, with her vocals remaining powerful yet understated as the production swirls around her.
Sadly nothing that appears on Lights really lives up to the promise made by her demos and singles; it emerges overproduced and profoundly uninspiring. In the end everything, with the exception of ‘Under The Sheets’, ‘The Writer’ and ‘Starry Eyed’ all sound extremely samey with the slight resemblance to what would pass as a reasonable Natasha Bedingfield reject. So with all the hype, and the fact that I pre-ordered this and was so excited to see this plonk onto my doormat that I may have made a noise along the lines of ‘squee!!’, Lights ends up as a profound disappointment that happily paves the way for the Diana Vickers debut album in April.
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