Ladyhawke - Anxiety

Ever since forking out the extravagant amount of £2 for her debut album in HMV I've been able to call myself a loyal Ladyhawke fan. The finest popstar to hail from New Zealand since...well, this is embarrassing. Philippa Brown broke through in 2008 with a whole range of excellently-crafted pop songs (Magic, My Delirium, Paris is Burning), but sadly none of them by her. She'd enjoyed relative success already as part of the Australian band Teenager but the idea of Ladyhawke as a popstar seemed to trigger more.

Thus it was a nice day-after-birthday surprise to discover her return single, Black, White & Blue. The initial fear though was that Brown had decided to veer away from the pop tinges of her debut in favour of a kind of Garbage sound - indeed, Anxiety has been billed as a "straight-up guitar record":

It's lot more rocky. The tone of it is definitely darker. It's still poppy and fun, but I listened to a lot of guitar rock when I was writing it, stuff like Pixies, Blur, Nirvana and I've always wanted to make a guitar record. There's no synth, but there's some organ. It's more of a straight-up rock record. (Source: NME, Jan. 18)

The album begins, though, with plenty of synths and guitar licks on 'Girl Like Me' that all elements of pop are still very much intact. Vocally lilting somewhere between Sophie Ellis-Bextor pouts and Shirley Manson suggestiveness, the track is a strong opener and has a pretty nice recurring riff. 'Sunday Drive' too is positioned in a 1980s light, with a slightly ragtime piano hook that gets lost in a killer-synth bridge. Indeed, so poppy that it's already been remixed by the Scissor Sisters and Gigamesh. First glimpse of the album, then, 'Black, White & Blue' does begin to kick off the rockier side of the album with a drivetime chorus and heavy drums, and it's another solid, catchy track from her.

Lyrically, though, there are poor moments. 'Vaccine' switches between samey verses and choruses with some vague likeness of love to chemical bliss, over a standard synthpop filler. She then resorts to "na-na-na"s on 'Blue Eyes', which is thankfully saved by a half-catchy tune and beat. 'Vanity' resorts to some GaGaesque lyrical-hooks that're lost somewhere in a sea of circus-music nightmarishness. The track just seems lazy and daft for her standards. Thankfully her knack for an interesting and unpredictable pop song resurfaces on 'The Quick & the Dead', one of her rockiest tracks. Harsher critics might make something of the second verse - "I can hear your voice but I don't understand it/ What have you become?" - and in all honesty it's another naff lyric, but musically it's quite decent.

Fans mourning her detours from pop will take great solace in the title track, however, with a brightly synthesized intro and chorus that echoes the likes of Paris is Burning and My Delirium. Although sadly not as strong or memorable as those, it holds its own and stands out as one of the album highlights. On 'Cellophane' the instrumentation draws aforementioned inspiration from Nirvana and a little bit like Blur's Beetlebum, but her content vocals draw it away from being a gritty piece. Nonetheless, it's another interesting sound for her - and ultimately a sweet one too, singing "it was meant to be" triumphantly through "pink cellophane", perhaps a Kiwi take on rose-tinted glasses. The album closes with 'Gone Gone Gone', a track fused with Wall of Sound elements - a quick organ effect in the opening verse, "doo-doo" backing vocals in the chorus - and an unusually Britpop sound for a New Zealander.


Certainly, given how short, at 36 minutes, the record is (especially in comparison to the debut's 43) initially a disappointment. With songs ultimately not as catchy as her older material, there'll inevitably be a lot of detractors of her sophomore effort, but a change of instruments and image have given Ladyhawke a fresh breath of air. There are a couple of blunders in the middle, but it's difficult to come out of this album feeling anything other than satisfied. Now excuse me whilst I go and find Magic again.

Rating: 7/10

Highlights: Sunday Drive, Black, White & Blue, Anxiety, Cellophane, The Quick & the Dead

Avoid: Vaccine, Vanity


Artwork Watch: It is hand-drawn and pretty and well done Ladyhawke.