Mechanical Bride "Living With Ants"

Transgressive Records, 2011

Classy debut album

• My apologies for using a cricketing phrase in a music review but my other efforts made Mechanical Bride (Brighton musician Lauren Doss) sound like either a mugger or confidence trickster; neither of which are particularly becoming.

• ‘Living With Ants’ (Doss’ debut album) ‘gets big on you’* one moment you are listening to a slow piano led track with distant dreamy vocals and then, with no warning, you are listening jazzy horns and brushes on a drum kit (‘Magpie’), or she goes all Guy Garvey on you and you find yourself swimming in a sea of strings (‘Colour Of Fire’).

  Doss’ first EP was four years ago, her second followed a year later so ‘Living With Ants’ has been three years in the planning, writing and making which has been time well spent. It feels like the artist has been able to deliver exactly the album that she wanted (although, like all the best musicians, I’d guess she thinks she could have made an improvement in some way). ‘Living with Ants’ is a very classy album.

   

  * A ball that gets big on a batsman is one bounces more than they expect, it is generally due to great skill by the bowler.