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Review: Ladyhawke's Upcoming LP, Time Flies, Is Ethereal Yet Peppy

New Zealand singer-songwriter Pip Brown of Ladyhawke fame has gone through a busy year thus far. She released two singles and is releasing a full LP later this year, in October. Fortunately, we got a chance to listen to Ladyhawke's upcoming LP, entitled Time Flies, for review purposes. Here's what we think of it!

The album cover for Time Flies, Ladyhawke's newest upcoming LP. Label: BMG
The album cover for Time Flies, Ladyhawke's newest upcoming LP. Label: BMG

"My Love" is a funky pop bop that aims to start Ladyhawke's Time Flies LP with a catchy, upbeat beginning that belies a somber lyrical value. The opening to a very catchy album, "My Love," adeptly serves to showcase what's to come.

"Think About You," the second track in the LP, has this neat sliding quality to its musicality and feels like the kind of music one should be listening to at the roller derby, which ought to be taken as a compliment. The lyrics feel a bit similar to the previous track in content but feel even more whole in content.

"Time Flies," the titular song from this album, begins with a slight departure down from the tempo of the previous two but is nonetheless just as chill as those tracks. The drum that underscores the vocals of Pip Brown carries the verses into the chorus quite nicely, and the vocals do the rest to enthrall listeners with ease. This song feels a bit slow, but the acoustic twang of the guitar just after the 3:00 mark is truly something interesting to listen out for.

The fourth track from Time Flies, "Mixed Emotions," is so far the coolest song from the album, upon first listen through. It's chill, has an ethereal, funky, and relatively upbeat quality, and lends itself to all manner of positive goosebumps. The percussion, once again, carries this song, but the vocals' content gives us vaguely "Electric Avenue" vibes, which is a good thing.

Track 5 of this LP, "Guilty Love," starts out with a great bassline and drum beat and follows through with a lower but no-less-smooth set of vocals. "Guilty Love"'s chorus feels like it has the right level of electric guitar to give a bit of edge to the rest of the chorus. Nice!

"Take It Easy Mama," the sixth track, takes a slow step back from the tempo of "Mixed Emotions" or the instrumentalism of "Guilty Love" at the start to provide a premise before rushing all of that right back for the chorus of the song before once again stepping back to a subdued musicality. This kind of switcharoo sounds great for the ears, despite what it may seem.

Track 7, "Loner," has a great bassline, and it immediately carries the verses of the song behind Pip Brown's silky vocals. The poppy quality of her voice really works with the funky bass and percussion, and we can't understate that at all.

"Reactor," Time Flies' eighth track, feels at first like the name describes. The brief instrumental intro radiates outward and resonates in an interesting way. The bass underscore seems to help the rest of the song ripple along neatly, which, in our description, does not do enough service to the vocals, as they are the aspect most affected (and positively so!) by the effects in the song.

The penultimate track, "Walk Away," begins with a peppy piano tune that morphs quickly into a synth alongside the vocals. The bass and percussion serve to augment these aspects of the track, and it all melds together to make a really upbeat track.

"Love Is Bind," the tenth and final track in Ladyhawke's LP, slows down the pace a ton at the start, but soon we listen to a metamorphosis of sorts as the verse cocoons itself into the pre-chorus, and, just before the 2:00 mark, emerges as something just as elegant, but somehow a bit more than what we went in with. There is an eerie quality to the end of this track, but it serves as a great and poignant end to the album.

All in all, the Time Flies LP by Ladyhawke is ethereal, poppy, and funky all at once. It's the kind of music that makes you want to dance, if not for the fact that you're listening to it at work. However, surely you can afford to tap your toe to the rhythms.

Time Flies by Ladyhawke releases on October 8th, later this year. Are you excited about this album's release? Let us know what you think in the comments below!


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Joshua NelsonAbout Joshua Nelson

Josh Nelson is a Magic: The Gathering deckbuilding savant, a self-proclaimed scholar of all things Sweeney Todd, and, of course, a writer for Bleeding Cool. In their downtime, Josh can be found painting models, playing Magic, or possibly preaching about the horrors and merits of anthropophagy. You can find them on Twitter at @Burning_Inquiry for all your burning inquiries.
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