Music review: Elizabeth Rose EP
Sydney-based electronic musician Elizabeth Rose recently released her self-titled EP. She’s done a hell of a job at it as well, says Kaya Strehler:
The FBi Radio darling’s five track EP boasts a bunch of stuff; that she can pen lyrics, she knows how to layer like a baking boss and she has some high-and-mighty friends in the industry, including Cameron Parkin (Shazam), Styalz Fuego (Owl Eyes, Aston Shuffle, 360) and Matt Colton (James Blake, Coldplay), so you know she’s in good hands.
I guess it would be a massive cop out to quote her Facebook page straight to you but honestly, its description (“lofty pop melodies and astral beats”) is better than any adjectives I could musically string together. I’m only human after all. Fear not, I will still supply a few flowery descriptions myself. Listening to the EP you can hear it’s heavy on the pop influence, it even sometimes skirts the line of being a little too poppy, the saving grace being the sharp ‘astral beats’ that bring it back from the edge before it jumps to pop death.
It starts with The Good Life, which at first listen seems to be like all decent pop songs with a good ol’ love centric theme. But if you take a second to consider the lyrics you get not only an insight to her ability to describe mundane situations poetically, like all damn creatives, but also a reminder that the girl is only 22-years-old and is singing her heart out about still living at home.
Is it Love? shows off some pretty ethereal vocals with punchy electronic beats which remain fairly consistent throughout the EP, with the exception of Only Me. Having VCS as the male vocals in Only Me kind of kills it, it leaves the song toeing that line again. Saving grace is the mellow break, which you don’t know you needed until it’s happening. A new tempo and dynamic to a song shows us that Rose has stepped back, taken a look at the EP as a whole and now stepping up.
Finally, Sensibility is another example of the potential pop plight made cooler by the ‘astral beats’. Sensibility shows some killer songwriting which is self-described about ‘the push and pulls of a relationship that is starting to fall apart – about the mind games involved.’ Personally it hit a nerve, but as a musician isn’t that the aim? To make people feel things? Emotions and stuff? Well, I never thought electronic music would ever be the reason for a stray tear (unless it was really really bad, then I would be crying from the headache), but Lady Rose has combined pop vocals, A+ songwriting and astral beats to make an EP that did it. Kudos! Definitely worth a listen.
Review by Kaya Strehler.
