Tuesday 31 January 2012

Ladyhawke - Black, White & Blue


Cast your mind back to 2008 and a rising New-Zealand based synth pop star going under the alias of Ladyhawke, ripping up indie dance floors all over the country. Four years later and Pip Brown is back. Putting her lengthy absence from the music scene down to resisting the urge to quickly record a follow up to her eponymous first album, having realised she was exhausted from extensive touring, it’s refreshing to know an artist spent time thinking over her second album. But is Ladyhawke going to be able to make the wait worth the while? Pip Brown has described the new album ‘Anxiety’ as a lot more guitar based than her previous record but there is little evidence of this on first single ‘Black, White & Blue’. 

Curiously reminiscent of some Summer Camp material, if anything there are more synthesizer bleeps bringing out the sensual vocals and euphoric chorus of the track. The song wouldn’t feel out of place Ladyhawke’s first album as it effortlessly manages to do pop by numbers. Although Pip Brown doesn’t seem to have spent the past four years expanding her musical horizons, when you can write pop songs as good as this, who needs to? If the rest of the album can match up to ‘Black, White & Blue’, it will be like Ladyhawke never went away.

By Jessy Parker

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