Laura Mardon – One Week Record

This artist took me by surprise; but the quality of the album is no surprise.

I should qualify the above statement, I had never heard of Laura Mardon until the day the album was released, I certainly wasn’t waiting for the album with great anticipation. However, as soon as I saw a Facebook post by One Week Record’s that they had a new album for download, I immediately bought it knowing I was in for another amazing album, and I was not disappointed.

10 seconds into the opening track “Hail Hail The Dead Can Dance” the sound the record is going to take is obvious; raw, guitar based folk music with a punk attitutude behind it. Folk punk is no rareity these days, it’s been done by every aging punk front man while their band is on hiatus, and has essentially been mastered by Frank Turner, but still, it is refreshing to hear a female voice sing that style of music and make it their own.

While the album doesn’t necessarily seem to be structured in any specific way; its not following a character or telling one specific story, I find that it builds in strength until it peaks at song 7 (of 10), “Apologies Apologies”. This is by far my favourite track on the album, I must have played it over and over at least 15 times in the last 24 hours alone. It’s the song that shows just what Laura is capable of with her voice, from spitting out quick lines and venturing into punk territory early in the song, she complements it perfectly with some softer, quieter lines that draw out the underlying emotion in the song. For me this song sounds like it is by far the most dynamic and complete song on the album. I mentioned that the album peaks at song 7, thats not to say that the album drops off at all, the last 3 songs are very good solid songs, but the first time I listened to the album I had to play “Apologies Apologies” 3 times before I could bring myself to move on, and once you have heard a song that you enjoy that much, the album has peaked.

There are many highlights to the album, “Lobby Floor” is another stand out for me, it carries a different sound to many of the other songs, it involves a few more instruments, and at points Laura’s voice seems to take a backseat to the instrumentation. However as it builds to a crescendo (is that the right word? probably not, but I’m going with it) and she sings out “I am stronger than I was” it’s clear the music is drawing the listener in and only adding to the song. This song sounds like the one most likely to reach a wider audience and appeal to the indie kids.

It wasn’t until I went back over the album listening for things I missed that I realised the brilliance in the song “The Sweetest Notes”, this is possibly the softest and saddest song on the album, at an impressive 5 minutes 18 seconds long, it does a very good job to hold my attention for the entirity of the song. I worry that I overlooked in my initial listenting of the album because I was in such awe of Apologies Apologies, that, I guess is the danger of putting such a dynamic song in the midst of an otherwise quite and gentle album.

Overall Laura Mardon has produced an excellent One Week Record for her debut album. The songs could have easily been over produced, over polished and come out sounding like any other indie folk singer but they’re not, they’re left raw, and it feels like Laura could just as easily be sitting next to you playing them around a campfire as she could be singing them on a stage or in the studio.

8/10

Matt Power
17 April 2015