Ladyhawke, Anxiety (Island)

Wednesday 30 May 2012

It's a shame this second album by New Zealander Pip Brown arrives a few weeks after Garbage returned to the scene.

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Alan Morrison

Ladyhawke doesn't go down the full black mascara route, but the basic set-up – outsider female vocal over buzzing guitar/synth/bass layers to give an alt-rock edge to a strong pop sensibility – betrays a similar musical DNA.

To be fair, Anxiety (now there's an honest title for a sophomore release) pushes its pop credentials further to the fore: the "na na na-na-na" singalong of Blue Eyes takes flight over a bubbling pit of fuzzed-up instruments; the pub piano and brighter melody of Sunday Drive leaves Shirley Manson standing on the minor-key bridge between verse and chorus; and the heavy stomp of The Quick And The Dead overcomes its grungy production to usurp the indie-club dancefloor.Lyrically and musically, Anxiety is a harder-edged entity than Ladyhawke's self-titled 1980s electropop debut (which contained single My Delirium). The success of that record and Brown's experiences with Asperger's have reportedly made delivering a follow-up quite a challenge, but the result is an album that gains weight without sacrificing the tunes.

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Ladyhawke, Anxiety (Island)

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