EMA

I have to question the logic of releasing this album when the sun is beating down, the blossom is out and there is a spring in the step of the majority of the population. EMA’s album is deep, dark, dense, discordant and devilishly difficult to penetrate when your soul is rejoicing in the coming of the bright seasons (please note that I avoided the other D word – Depressing) and it is a shame because it is a superb work and EMA has fulfilled the promise I thought I saw through her ‘The Grey Ship’ EP of earlier in the year.

‘California’ is a brutal diatribe with huge crashing chords and her vocals seemingly peering out of the dense mix – Patti Smith in her early years would not have been unhappy with this – swiftly followed by ‘Anteroom’ which in its lighter, apparent, simplicity lifts the mood but there are darknesses held in her lyrics and a delicious dichotomy. ‘Milkman’ is fuzzed with a huge drum crash and her favourite distorted and twisted guitar signatures. ‘Coda’ is acapella – a little round with a country tinge – but it leads the listener into ‘Marked’: probably the most horrific number on the album with all the angular changes of early Velvet Underground.

The thing that comes over here is the pressure she builds through her music – irresistible and constant – and even on the light numbers she keeps pushing and pushing. Shoegazey music at its best.
The album only runs 37 minutes and that is about as much as you can take at one listening but it is brilliant and EMA deserves to be heard.

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