Ladyhawke - Anxiety

It’s been a long wait, far too long a wait for Ladyhawke. Speculation turned to further speculation until the line was almost flat on her return, but here it is. Anxiety. Pip’s return promised so much; at times it promised grunge, at times it promised pop but now it’s here I’m not sure which it borders on least.

Okay, its possible that that’s skipping to the end, but for an album with so much promise and surely enough time spent on it to fulfil that promise, there just seems to be something lacking. Gone are many of the hooks from the self titled debut and in their place has been placed a worrying amount of sheen. Tracks such as Vanity ooze a cleaner style that begs for a darker hook whilst The Quick and the Dead is something short of Dusk Till Dawn. The comparisons run dry when you put it together on stage, but playing through via your preferred medium of player will see you return to the debut three and a half lines down the line. Comeback single Black White and Blue didn’t really inspire much more than a revival and whilst Sunday Drive has a similar aesthetic to the singles of the eponymous debut, it’s simply not as good.

Don’t read this wrong, it’s refreshing and relieving to have new material and there’s huge signs of growth in Pip Brown’s songwriting as a whole. Take Cellophane for example, it’s bold and refined at the same time. It’s got a beautiful pulse and is lyrically as strong as Ladyhawke’s ever been. “All those year running away we never knew // that it was meant to be” she sings. It’s borderline anthemic without relying on the catchy and it’s exactly what’s been missing from Ladyhawke as a whole. Still, there’s potential singles that are poppy with the slight grunge edge as promised so the “na na nanana”s of Blue Eyes will become a highlight of the live set should it receive such treatment.

It’s not the comeback of a three year itch that some had hoped for, but there’s promise there and with promise could come either mainstream recognition or simply a new niche. Let’s see.

6.2

Braden Fletcher

Ladyhawke - Sunday Drive

"Finally! After so many years New Zealish indie-electro-disco-pop queen Ladyhawke has returned to free us from all the disposable pop divas clogging up the charts cooing over euro trance!" chanted all the indie kids of 2006 and 2007 (well, maybe some of them) upon Pip Brown's return to music earlier this year. Ladyhawke was really something when her debut album was released, a great pop record with more alternative sensibilities crammed with crowd-pleasing tunes like 'Paris Is Burning', 'Dusk To Dawn' & 'My Delirium'. And hell, her comeback single 'Black, White & Blue' released about a month ago was an enjoyable blast of noise even if it did lack a bit of fun.

In fact, that's the overwhelming impression given off by 'Sunday Drive', a lack of fun. There's such a lack of anything on 'Sunday Drive' to be honest, a tune is there but stick in your head, it does not. Maybe people would care if Pip had released this in 2009, but in an ever expanding world of musical tastes (via the internet) I wouldn't be surprised if many of the kids that became infatuated with her debut have moved on to either the current indie crop, or the new batch of much better alternative female pop figures (Marina, Lykke Li etc...) Ladyhawke is certainly in a tricky position, unless her new album 'Anxiety' really hits the mark she may have waited just a little bit too long. On the evidence so far, it's not looking too good.

Toby McCarron

Ladyhawke - Black, White & Blue

Cast your mind back to 2008 and a rising New-Zealand based synth pop star going under the alias of Ladyhawke, ripping up indie dance floors all over the country. Four years later and Pip Brown is back. Putting her lengthy absence from the music scene down to resisting the urge to quickly record a follow up to her eponymous first album, having realised she was exhausted from extensive touring, it’s refreshing to know an artist spent time thinking over her second album. But is Ladyhawke going to be able to make the wait worth the while? Pip Brown has described the new album ‘Anxiety’ as a lot more guitar based than her previous record but there is little evidence of this on first single ‘Black, White & Blue’. 

Curiously reminiscent of some Summer Camp material, if anything there are more synthesizer bleeps bringing out the sensual vocals and euphoric chorus of the track. The song wouldn’t feel out of place Ladyhawke’s first album as it effortlessly manages to do pop by numbers. Although Pip Brown doesn’t seem to have spent the past four years expanding her musical horizons, when you can write pop songs as good as this, who needs to? If the rest of the album can match up to ‘Black, White & Blue’, it will be like Ladyhawke never went away.

By Jessy Parker