Following on from their internationally acclaimed debut 'The Great Unwanted', Lucky Soul have taken the gloves off. On new album ‘A Coming of Age’ the shameless love for pure melody remains, but any hint of knowing pastiche has been replaced with big, confident, lean production; it’s a soaring album of modern pop - music for a new decade.
Here are twelve tracks that never, ever cross the 4-minute mark; packed with more hooks than an Icelandic hardware shop. Opener 'Woah Billy!' doesn’t even bother with a verse, it’s just wave after wave of 24-carat chorus - title track 'A Coming of Age' is surely a Bond theme tune in waiting - and Ali Howard’s voice in 'Southern Melancholy' mesmerises like a wind chime that’s been tamed and taught how to waltz. Alongside thundering rhythms, heart-stopping harmonies, cosmic keys and flashing Marr-esque guitars there are ambrosial string arrangements courtesy of the very same Stockholm Strings who gave so much in way of atmosphere to Brian Wilson’s 'Smile'.
But more than that there’s lyrical wit, the swirl of complex emotions and a claret splash of old-fashioned tortured genius. These may sound, on the face of it, like twelve classic love songs but listen a bit more carefully; there’s something else going on: songwriter Andrew Laidlaw is a dark soul, and beneath the silvery arrangements lurk sentiments that make Leonard Cohen look like Miley Cyrus.
The artwork for the 'A Coming Of Age' album Artwork on the album and single courtesy of Hollis Brown Thornton, and the video for the album's first single 'White Russian Doll' (below) has been directed by James Slater of Goodtimes Moving Images (Norah Jones, Kaiser Chiefs, The Coral).
Lucky Soul - White Russian Doll HD from Ruffa Lane on Vimeo.
"Pop at its most glorious and heartbreaking" - Metro 5/5, "Musically, Lucky Soul’s new album is the sound of a band suddenly going 3D and in an alternate universe where Cowellism doesn't rule (and ruin) everything it surveys, Lucky Soul are already huge. With ‘A Coming Of Age’, these pop dreamers have made the record which deserves to make that a reality" - Simon Price, The Independent.
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