LP - Heart to Mouth

The Guardian 80

Vagrant

‘I think androgyny is an art form,” declared Laura “LP” Pergolizzi last year, and the New York singer-songwriter certainly carries it off. Her mix of tousled curls, mens’ jackets and sunglasses after dark make the 37-year-old look part-Patti Smith, part-Marc Bolan. “I’ve always felt kinda gender neutral,“ she says.

Her fifth album similarly respects no boundaries, careering between sultry and exuberant, from big pop to chugging rock. Opener Dreamcatcher – all wistful yearning and eerie, mystical sounds – could fit perfectly on a late period Fleetwood Mac or Stevie Nicks album, but is very different from LP’s big-lunged ballads. Girls Go Wild (“… on the west coast, come on let’s go!”) is fantastic travelogue pop, with a huge chorus, New Order-y guitar solo and even a bout of whistling.

Fri Dec 07 10:30:14 GMT 2018

The Guardian 20

(BMG)

The power ballad marks the collapse of drama into the arms of melodrama. If camp is the failure of seriousness, then the power ballad is the opposite, its success. There is no paradox in the fact that many power ballads are indelibly camp – that’s thanks to the way we British receive them, always slightly uncomfortable with the revelation of genuine emotion, always looking for the easy exit of the first available gag. But you can’t make a great power ballad if you try to wink at the audience through the drifts of dry ice. It’s why no one listens to the Darkness any more, and why Total Eclipse of the Heart will live forever.

American singer-songwriter Laura “LP” Pergolizzi understands these things instinctively, and tries to prove it with this album of iceberg-paced ballads that whiff of wind machines and backlit mullets. She has a decent enough voice, like Stevie Nicks without any of the sylvan wildness or grit. But the music is horrible. You end up regarding its strident insincerity with a sort of awed horror. It’s late-period Celine Dion, going mad in her Vegas penthouse; it’s Ant and Dec remaking Triumph of the Will.

Sun Dec 16 08:00:41 GMT 2018