Thank You Lex Grey
This is Raunchy Rock, and the title is presumably ironic:
any healing of this singing soul would remove the sinning at its vocal core.
Indeed, Marlowe might have written about Lex Grey’s dance and found the selling
worth this one album alone.
But Grey doesn’t ask for much: I wanna live in a factory, surrounded by empty machinery. All she
wants to do is make an industrial-sized
mess and one feels like advising she doesn’t need to make any deals with
the gory-red horned-one for these simple aspirations.
That urban request for industrial living comes from opener Factory and its rockblues is dirty and
kept that way by the raw and wonderful vocal of Grey. Chicken clucks accompany
on next Hobo Soup, and this indicates
there is going to be some animal humour over and above its other basic urges.
Third Ghost indulges a slightly
ghostly chorus, and a violin joins in Grey’s closing raucous rage – it is wild
and authentic in its basic rock roots. This is a band one assumes strips away even
more pretence from wherever it tries to hang near any live gigs.
Quiet Place slows
things down just enough to prove it can be done, but Grey’s crackle is still
the emotive centre, even when a rising vocal ensemble builds around this, a
marginally dissonant background flute fighting for recognition. Blues All Around follows with a vocal
drag that scrapes across the floor churning up pain in its splintered sound. Survive demonstrates how the Urban
Pioneers can layer their own qualities across Grey’s voice in a more divergent
song, some complex vocal backgrounds joining the fuller musicianship. There is
some psychedelia in this one, and I like it loads. Closer Heal My Soul is a powerful, mature blues, some sassy sax bolstering
Grey at her glorious vocal best, the gritty thank
you baby just brilliant. A damn fine song and performance, that sax closing it out with soulful feeling.
Check out the band’s site and download here.
No comments:
Post a Comment