"this pitch perfect record deserves to be on the stereo all summer."
Lucky Soul may come from Greenwich, South London, but their spiritual home is the US in the 1960s and the golden age of girl group pop. The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las, a dab of Motown, a burst of doo-wop; all these things are filtered through classic English pop on the band's debut album, The Great Unwanted.
This is pop at its most glorious and heartbreaking: vocalist Ali Howard sounds like a more coquettish Dusty Springfield writing the soundtrack to the first summer she fell in love.
Lyrics about first kisses and dashed hopes are set against hip-twisting rhythm sections, hand-clapping choruses, shimmering harmonies and gleaming brass. Get Outta Town, with its gleeful spirit of rebellion, is freeway pop at its most brilliant and shameless.
In contrast, Baby I'm Broke is a slow burning, modern soul beauty steeped in tears. There's certainly a mischievous sense of pastiche here in the careful calibration of retro references and the sound of sun-soaked adolescent dreams.
Yet Lucky Soul incorporate this knowingness with such disarming ease that this pitch perfect record deserves to be on the stereo all summer.
Lucky Soul may come from Greenwich, South London, but their spiritual home is the US in the 1960s and the golden age of girl group pop. The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las, a dab of Motown, a burst of doo-wop; all these things are filtered through classic English pop on the band's debut album, The Great Unwanted.
This is pop at its most glorious and heartbreaking: vocalist Ali Howard sounds like a more coquettish Dusty Springfield writing the soundtrack to the first summer she fell in love.
Lyrics about first kisses and dashed hopes are set against hip-twisting rhythm sections, hand-clapping choruses, shimmering harmonies and gleaming brass. Get Outta Town, with its gleeful spirit of rebellion, is freeway pop at its most brilliant and shameless.
In contrast, Baby I'm Broke is a slow burning, modern soul beauty steeped in tears. There's certainly a mischievous sense of pastiche here in the careful calibration of retro references and the sound of sun-soaked adolescent dreams.
Yet Lucky Soul incorporate this knowingness with such disarming ease that this pitch perfect record deserves to be on the stereo all summer.
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