Lavender Diamond - The Cavalry of Light EP (Rough Trade)
3/5
By: Kevin Molloy
Why is being hippy getting to fashionable? Lavender Diamond advertise 'peace comics' and 'peace concerts' on their joyfully childish website, and some of this lyrical guff would make the tie-dye generation look positively gloomy. The EP's title itself comes from a just such a lyric: "I hear the cavalry of light, I see the sound of endless sight, I feel the field of battle, within my life". It's kind of great, though: it's guilty pleasure stuff.
Lavender Diamond, we find, is basically Becky Stark's voice, backed up by a band that sound something like The Go! Team playing Richard Hawley's 'The Ocean'. The harmonies are tight yet full, and must sound awesome live. In fact, that's what these songs need in general: the added wonder of performance. There's a lot of live 'feel' to the tracks, a production ethic they share with the aforementioned Go! Team... but that can be a shot in the foot when failing to catch what we expect is probably a euphoric stage-presence.
Whilst 'You Broke My Heart' is probably the most memorable track, and a clear contender for a full single release, Stark's tender vocals are better showcased still on 'Please': tenderly, palpably sincere and delicate, but full and deep. Decisions have to be made on where the band are heading: the stripped back, strings-laden 'Please' is gorgeous, but the band always seem to tend for as many instruments as they can overlay before the song disappears beneath their weight. 'Rise in the Springtime' sometimes copes with the weight, with hints of Balanescu Quartet... but at others it slips unremembered beneath the waves of instruments obscuring the drifting melody.
Four tracks is never enough to tell a band's worth, but this EP is full of promise of things to come. We look forward expectantly...
Artists in this article: Lavender Diamond
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