This Glasgow-based singer-songwriter has been bubbling under for a while with some great live performances (notably supporting and playing with The Filthy Tongues and Goodbye Mr Mackenzie last year) and this is her debut long-player.
Recorded with a band including Gerry Gregory on bass, Dave Cook on guitar, and Signy Jakobsdottir on drums, the artist known to her mum as Marie Claire Lee breezes through eight tracks of dark and twisted rock n roll.
The album is very tuneful, with swathes of rampant blues guitar on first track ‘Nothing Feels Like Loving You’, recalling Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’ – high praise indeed!
‘A Little While More’ follows and is more brothel-creeping, with maybe some Cramps influences coming through, and that smoky voice is pretty unique, smouldering and sensual in equal measure… There is something pretty primordial about the sound of this…
‘Chase the Devil’ is minimalist in approach but very moving… that voice! Then it breaks into a big booming chorus… good grief it is good!
‘I Am Fire’ is a massive wig-out starting with electric guitar, then it bursts into a full band blizzard… BM is thinking Curve, PJ Harvey, Garbage, in that kinda class, again strong praise indeed…
And the rest of the eight songs are equally good – ‘Kiss Me Like I’m Somebody Else’ is a great rocker, ‘In God’s House’ is a blues stoker, and ‘It’s Love That Brought You Here’ is a wistful ballad, which again gives us some incredible vocal lines – the best BM has heard for some time.
The final, title track ‘Shatter’ is another love song – but the build-up is incredible, electronic rumblings break into a mid-paced ballad, but there are other forces at work too – a mid-section of strummy guitar, and further vocal revelations before the pace picks up into a gorgeous finale of OTT instrumentation and a righteous hoe-down – an ideal finale for a great record.