Teasing Lulu - Black Summer
This female blasted punk rock duo and song writing pair sure know how to build the tension in a room. With Lucy Dalton on lead vocals and guitar and Louisa Carr on bass and backing vocals, ‘Black Summer’ is the bands recent album release.
Throughout eleven of the twelve tracks on this album anger seems to the main objective, in music and vocals. With a punk rock styling, heavy guitar and bass driven, each of these tracks is fairly similar in their appearance. The opener, ‘The Ex-Factor’ rumbles along with its rhythms and beats, but that is nothing new and nothing we haven’t heard before. As we move on to ‘Waste of Time’ we get a decent song but pretty much the same as its predecessor, the same goes many other tracks, and even with a slight sping in its step, ‘Lady Luck’ fails to make me feel anything.
With the calmer ‘I’m so Bored’, a tired and distracted atmosphere falls across the track like a black cloud, as if the vocalist is bored of the words she is singing, as if infuriated by a relationship that has been dragging on and hanging by a thread; well it is time to head for the scissors.
Some power and emotion is contained within four of the tracks. The angry female screaming the title, “You ain’t my Baby” links pretty well with the harmonies in background to make this one a little more substantial and ‘Burning Out’ for some unknown reason made my toes unconsciously tap in my shoes even though there was nothing notable about it.
The real success comes with the albums title track. ‘Black Summer’ is completely different to previous songs. The vocals sound decent, soothing within the acoustic setting and she actually singing an not shouting through the microphone. There is no anger in her voice, yet an incredibly subtle, more heartfelt, emotionally influenced voice shines to the words she is singing. This harmonious flow appears again for the concluding track ‘Are You With Me Or Not’ but doesn’t stick around to hit the track full force.
This album has to be listened as a whole for you to be hit with the full force of Teasing Lulu.