Alex Lahey - The Best Of Luck Club

I seem to be listening to a lot of Australian artists lately and maybe because they have discovered the mainstream after a bit of a lull. This is the third Oz related review in quick succession, but with all three, the vibe has been anything but antipodean.

Since Avril Lavigne seems to now want to be Lady Gaga, there's a definite space for a female vocalist who can rock and why not Alex Lahey? Don't misunderstand me, Lahey hasn't got that Lavigne shouty drawl, she's a much better vocalist and there's a real self depreciating quality in her songwriting. The production is also a bit Butch Walker, but thankfully without the audio compression and those bloody hand claps.

The Best Of Luck Club though comes across more as a rockier KT Tunstall with far more self awareness. The album doesn't come up from air until nearly halfway through with Unspoken History and then that's followed with the wonderfully noisy, venomous, Fuzz Rock of Misery Guts.

Lahey's debut album. I Love You Like A Brother was a really good album, if a little rough edged, but album number two irons out those creases and results in a splendidly melodic album, it's never short of a hook, but more importantly the toe tapping quotient is very high.

The time spent in Nashville shows at times, Black RM's is very current FM Country , yet I Want To Live With You is far more 80's Big Hair, very Belinda Carlisle. Don't Be So Hard On Yourself has a Clarence Clemons like Sax Solo that catches you by surprise, particularly as the chorus is so jaunty.

The gem is I Don't Get Invited To Parties Anymore which could very well be a Song Of The Year.  contender. You'll hear that on an upcoming I Don't Hear A Single Audio Extravaganza. But Am I Doing It Right, with it's killer riff and storming chorus and the brooding Interior Demeanour are every bit as good.

Here are 10 songs that will have some singing along. whilst others will investigate the lyrics, either way all will be listening. The Best Of Luck Club is a really admirable affair, it'll be up there fighting for IDHAS End Of Year Awards.

You can buy the album here.


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