Lucy Rose – Question It All / White Car

Lucy is rare artist, not least of all when it comes to her interaction with the fans.  From her trip to play free gigs while living with fans in South America to making beautiful music videos (watch here) featuring one of her followers she has bravely been pushing against the often boring norm of modern popular music artists. This has not changed with the current state of the world and even while in social isolation, Rose has managed to release two new songs along with a music video featuring the lives of her fans in lockdown.

Question It All

The first four-minute track features an upbeat and slightly ethereal yet stripped back soundscape where every instrument is clearly heard, mirrored by introspective lyrics of internal dialogue, something that should not be unfamiliar to long time listeners. Both of the tracks feature prominent and emotive slide bass, however this is slightly more in the background here than it is in ‘White Car’, however in both songs it is a welcome new addition and feels like a step in a new direction of more vintage textures and new phase of song writing. 

The music video features homemade clips sent in by fans of their everyday activities during the lockdown period. “I thought that it would be good to pair the song with something that was uplifting in this strange time and hopefully made some people happy” Lucy wrote in the description of the video and judging by the comments and general response it seems to have done just that. The clips feature people doing basic everyday things like reading, playing with their pets and spending time with friends and family. Both the music and the visuals combine to highlight the ever-old message of the beauty of the simple things in life. The chords and melodies of this song get stuck in your head and along with the wholesome nature of the video have you coming back time and time again.

White Car

“White Car” is an even more stripped back, melancholy and vintage sounding track, seemingly inspired by 70’s music the like of Joni Mitchell.  Featuring a long and simplistic yet majestical instrumental melody intro slowly building up into soft spoken lyrics, this one was a slightly unexpected yet a completely welcome surprise that blends Lucy’s earlier emotive and minimalistic songs like ‘Shiver’ with sounds, vocals and instruments found in her more recent works, all blended together by timeless song writing.

The track feels quite short however at only three and a half minutes and despite the long intro it could really have been extended to contain more than one verse to allow the listener to truly get lost in it. Despite it showing beautiful promise at the start and still being enjoyable to listen to it feels like there could have been a lot more done with this track with instead of being a short transitional track it had the potential for a massive build up and resolve and it being cut off so soon felt a bit untimely, however sticking this on repeat does a good job of solving the issue and letting the listener get lost in the otherworldly atmosphere the song provides.

Ratings are useless, listen and make up your own mind but I give this a solid 4 out of 5 stars.