Fizzing with energy, a blistering album of feisty brilliance à la Hole or Breeders, this is possibly the ex-Fall and The Extricated singer’s finest work yet, a debut solo LP featuring a female supergroup that includes My Bloody Valentine’s Deb Googe on bass, Jen Macro (keys/guitar) and Lisa Lux (drums). Produced by ex-Killing Joke bassist Martin ‘Youth’ Glover who also worked with The Verve, and Jesus & Mary Chain, guests also include Susannah Hoffs of The Bangles and Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama and Shakespears Sister. There’s four decades of post-punk, rock and op collaborative experience in Smith alone here, yet this is no nostalgia trip with formulaic padding. Tight, pacy tracks with whip-smart lyrics of humour and rage come thick and fast, from opener Livin Though My Despair, to Fast Net (“Your blow-up doll has jailbait smile / Sourdough bread with a baked-in file”); the meaty grunge of Aphrodite (“the muffled cry of lonely pheremones”); the slower Changing building into a stirring chorus, or the double-edged, sunny warmth depicting superficiality in California Smile that comes brings Courtney Love-style, searing, skin-deep menace (“Watch me I’ve played them all - the wife, the whore, the maid, the doll”). Black Rainbow Boy pounds with remorselessly momentum and a touch of electro-pop, Say I’m Ur No.1 catchy rock’n’pop at its finest, and there’s not a weak link anywhere, all the way to closing, vividly poetic 7-minute closer Black Butterfly. A belter by Brix from start to finish. Out on Grit Over Glamour. Now touring. See Brix’s website for gig details and to purchase the album.
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