Lonelady - Nerve Up

Author

Liam Blackford

Published

Wednesday 17th March

Any kind of rock music on Warp Records would have been seriously weird ten years ago, especially when you consider that the label is the home to history’s first IDM heavyweights (see Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada) and the driving force behind the evolution of that sound. The expansion into hiphop was pretty intuitive and obvious, but what is ‘Warp Records-like’ about post-punk acts like Maximo Park, Born Ruffians, and their latest offering from Manchester’s LoneLady? The answer is that, just like the cerebral sophistication of Aphex Twin back when he destroyed and rebuilt techno, LoneLady’s music aims for the brain as much as the feet, and is so much the better for doing so.

LoneLady’s trick is to use aggressive post-punk musical forms as a vehicle for a rich personal narrative. Hyperactive guitar work and propulsive drumming sets off tracks like ‘Early the Haste Comes’ and teeth-gnashing ‘Army’. A highlight is the highwire title track, a great example of LoneLady’s perfectly measured energy. LoneLady also injects enough momentum into her melancholy tracks to get the pathos across without becoming boring- see ‘Marble’.

The best thing about Nerve Up is how DIY everything sounds. LoneLady uses a small palette of instruments to awesome effect, using a simple synth bass to add the necessary weight beneath her deft guitar work. Most interesting is the awesome drum machine, which especially on tracks like ‘Nerve Up’ provide this weird nonchalant swagger to the music which works uncannily well with LoneLady’s post-2000s post-punk schtick. In the end Nerve Up is a strong debut from a artist with truckloads of potential.