Lav's Music Corner

  Review by k tessa Melancholy sapphic troubadour Lucy Dacus could probably make a good song out of the ways I feel about her. I admire her immensely, both for her consistency as an artist and her courage as a soft, butch-y celebrity in our contemporary culture. I think she's an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. But (and it breaks my heart to say this), much as I've tried to make it work, I don't know that I've ever loved her. Such emotions would fit right in on her fourth solo album, Forever Is A Feeling . Typically, my apathy would be unremarkable - but Dacus clearly expects her listeners to feel, very deeply, about this record. Its opening track, "Calliope Prelude", is a brief crescendo of soaring violins. It's named after the greatest of the Muses from Greek myth, the one who inspired The Iliad and other epic works. The cover presents Dacus herself inside an ornate gold frame, draped in golden silk like a deific Renaissance subject, the album...

Eat Your Young  EP - Hozier It's been since 2019 that we last got a new crop of Hozier songs and it feels like it's been every second of that and more. When I covered Wasteland, Baby!  there was love for Hozier pouring in from everywhere I posted it. But somehow his army of flannel-donning lesbian fans have dissipated a bit and I haven't heard nearly as many people talking about these songs. Despite that lack of noise, I've seen some positive coverage for this trio of songs, and the last time Hozier dipped his toes into the EP format on the Nina Cried Power  EP I enjoyed it, so I dove in. I don't know why I was expecting time away to have made Hozier a bit more meditative and folky but I was certainly surprised to hear the soaring gospel-flavored indie rock of the title track kicking off the record even though it's well within Hozier's wheelhouse. I actually think the song is solid though the Achilles heel is Hozier's singing on the hook. I'm just no...

Andrew Hozier-Byrne known professionally as Hozier is an Irish singer-songwriter who rose to fame in late 2013 on the back of his breakthrough hit song Take Me To Church . He channeled elements of blues and folk music into his debut album Hozier all the way back in 2014 and was largely silent for years after. Until late 2018 when he dropped the critically acclaimed and much loved Nina Cried Power  EP and announced a long awaited follow-up sophomore album shortly after.  Review By Lav: Even though its been a while many of us probably still have the first time we heard Take Me To Church stuck in out memory banks somewhere. The song is an excellent and bombastic pop-rock tune with strong roots in blues and folk music and a spectacular performance from Hozier. His debut album lived up moderately to they hype and I remember in what is now a long lost review giving it a 7/10 and being excited for his future as an artist. This only multiplied once I heard the Nina Cried ...