It is rare to discover a record so unlike anything else you are currently listening to, a record you know will be with you for years after a first listen, writes Neonfiller.com‘s David Newbury
Lindsay Fuller’s third album You, Anniversary, is such an album, it seduces and rattles your bones like a poltergeist at playtime. Each song an eulogy to the ghosts of Americana, which honours its southern roots yet refuses to be haunted by genre expectations.
You see, Fuller has removed herself from the south to adopt a dry city slickness, evident as Circa Never’s piercing guitar slices through churning drums, sound-tracking a shootout which is more Al Calpone than Billy The Kid. You expect Warren Ellis to bust out in a frenzy of dust and bile but, instead it breaks into an orchestral House of The Rising Sun. It is an album of constant surprise.
Death is never far away, with One More Song’s sawy cherishing Nick Cave’s Loverman crooning as Fuller growls: “You’re always looking to authenticate, well a bullet in a brain’s, just another cliché/ I can see you standing at your final hour, hoping Jesus will forgive you for destroying his temple.” This is pure gothic country, filled with haunting sermons which come to the fore in the title track.
You Anniversary gifts Fuller a voice somewhere between Mark Lanegan and PJ Harvey at her darkest, and in places sounds like she’s duetting with herself – as though replying to her mirrored ghost. There is the building inevitability of a death march before crying tremolo provides the catalyst for a heart wrenching proclamation: “There’ll be ushers and wood pews and bouquets of flowers, and my brothers and sisters will sit in dismay, and the body that held me will be on display”
It doesn’t get any cheerier. There are the minor chords of Coal Mine Canary – “the coal mine canary quits her sweet lullaby”- or Martin Lake’s subtle momentum–“The minister then wrung his robe and searched sky for heavens dove, yet none but ravens flew on high and shit upon the ground nearby.” You, Anniversary is brutally barren dereliction of all things holly, and this makes for a vigorously infectious album.
Fuller’s move from Birmingham Alabama –where else – to Seattle, has exorcised the country paradigm, allowing a crisp urban edge to permeate; one crafted from basement clubs than windswept bars. This gives provides a progressive Americana to take hold, nodding towards 16 Horsepower or a subdued Willard Grant Conspiracy.
Although fairly new into her career, Fuller’s already set her own benchmark to which her own talent will be judged. It’s unlikely she will write another album as dark as this, it sounds as though her demons have already been cast. Fuller is now at the cross roads visited by so many, but as evident by You Anniversary, whichever way she turns a phenomenal future is destined.
8/10
