Mechanical Bride - Living With Ants
Stay Loose, 2010
Published in Drunkenwerewolf Magazine, ed. Tiffany Daniels
Wordcount: 443
Date of Publication : June/July 2011
Living With Ants, the début from Brighton's Lauren Doss a la moniker Mechanical Bride, could be an ambient film score for an Antoiniak vignette, or the traditional take on Bjork's figurative Southern England years. From the opening solitary piano notes on “Magpie” that linger longer on their own than we would expect from a singer that is looking to make an entrance, it is clear that, musically, this is to be a competent and ambitious record made by a woman that has spent her entire life appreciating the dynamics of music. Everything sounds polished yet lightly touched and by the final track “Boom! (Shine a Light)”, a refrain that sings out this impressively mature album, you are left to stew in the realisation that it is sometimes the simplicity of a record that strikes you like a bullet. Living With Ants is bare bones, the human skeleton in all of its visual beauty, without the tricks we've become accustomed to, and despite the lack of excitement that affords us, it leaves a pleasant taste.
It is the weathered quality of her vocals, however, that makes this an interesting listen. With the knowing of someone much older, Doss slides along the melodies with a smoky quality to her voice that toes the line of delicate but never oversteps into saccharine. In a contemporary playing field of women that sing like girls, the indie-folk answer to dumbing yourself down, the confidence of Doss' voice is refreshing and the point is continuously reiterated along these ten tracks; that it is possible to sing 'pretty' without singing 'childish'. After all, vulnerability is an attractive quality for any artist, but playing innocent will always fall on the wrong side of sickening.
And this is an aural feast, even if it leaves us wanting for something that makes it anything more than merely a gorgeous sounding record. If I were to make any sort of comparison, avoiding the obvious Bat For Lashes that taints the positive things I have to say about Doss, I would name Cat Power. However what is lacking here is the emotional resonance of Chan Marshall's characteristic sucker-punch lyrics - the moment that makes you stop because you think you might lose your dinner with the sheer aptness of it all. It's missing the brutality that sums up its title: Mechanical Bride is living with ants, but doing very little about that fact. She is eccentric, but falls short of being truly believable. In short, this is a beautiful record for right now, this minute, but it's not one you'll remember next week.
Wordcount: 443
Date of Publication : June/July 2011
Living With Ants, the début from Brighton's Lauren Doss a la moniker Mechanical Bride, could be an ambient film score for an Antoiniak vignette, or the traditional take on Bjork's figurative Southern England years. From the opening solitary piano notes on “Magpie” that linger longer on their own than we would expect from a singer that is looking to make an entrance, it is clear that, musically, this is to be a competent and ambitious record made by a woman that has spent her entire life appreciating the dynamics of music. Everything sounds polished yet lightly touched and by the final track “Boom! (Shine a Light)”, a refrain that sings out this impressively mature album, you are left to stew in the realisation that it is sometimes the simplicity of a record that strikes you like a bullet. Living With Ants is bare bones, the human skeleton in all of its visual beauty, without the tricks we've become accustomed to, and despite the lack of excitement that affords us, it leaves a pleasant taste.
It is the weathered quality of her vocals, however, that makes this an interesting listen. With the knowing of someone much older, Doss slides along the melodies with a smoky quality to her voice that toes the line of delicate but never oversteps into saccharine. In a contemporary playing field of women that sing like girls, the indie-folk answer to dumbing yourself down, the confidence of Doss' voice is refreshing and the point is continuously reiterated along these ten tracks; that it is possible to sing 'pretty' without singing 'childish'. After all, vulnerability is an attractive quality for any artist, but playing innocent will always fall on the wrong side of sickening.
And this is an aural feast, even if it leaves us wanting for something that makes it anything more than merely a gorgeous sounding record. If I were to make any sort of comparison, avoiding the obvious Bat For Lashes that taints the positive things I have to say about Doss, I would name Cat Power. However what is lacking here is the emotional resonance of Chan Marshall's characteristic sucker-punch lyrics - the moment that makes you stop because you think you might lose your dinner with the sheer aptness of it all. It's missing the brutality that sums up its title: Mechanical Bride is living with ants, but doing very little about that fact. She is eccentric, but falls short of being truly believable. In short, this is a beautiful record for right now, this minute, but it's not one you'll remember next week.
