Album Review: Lauren Mayberry – Vicious Creature
2 min read
Scottish singer Lauren Mayberry launches her solo career with Vicious Creature, in her first solo project, away from her role as lead singer for synth-pop icons CHVRCHES. The album, released through EMI and Island Records, was entirely co-written by Mayberry, and covers a slew of topics that Mayberry “couldn’t or wouldn’t write in the band”.
Starting off with Something in the Air is a solid pop-rock in the late nineties/early noughties mould. Moving on we are met with 80’s keyboards (think the keyboards from Laura Branigan’s Gloria) in Crocodile Tears, which samples the strings from Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox, in what is a solid, yet slightly underwhelming pop track, and this pop style continues to Shame, which has a catchy bridge and is a superior track. Next up, we take a dip into country with the guitar-led Anywhere but Dancing, which lyrically feels like an underwhelming/failing relationship was the inspiration. Punch Drunk goes in a different direction – edgy electronica, and does so with some success. Onwards to Oh, Mother, which is a well written piano ballad, presumably covering Mayberry’s relationship with her own mother, and leads to Sorry, Etc (which has a punk/surf rock vibe to it) and Change Shapes, both of which lyrically loosely address experiences of sexism in the music industry.
Mantra is my favourite track on the album – feels like a grown up pop track with plenty of production twists, while following up A Work of Fiction is a close runner up – a light plucky track which is clearly about a blagger. Penultimate track Sunday Best is the most mainstream pop track on the album (with a fantastic bridge), while Are You Awake? rounds off the album well – a down-tempo track covering the feelings of being homesick and loneliness.
Vicious Creature is a fine example of a band’s lead singer trying to discover what kind of solo artist they are (if at all), searching around genres and filling it with material deemed unsuitable/not up to standard for the band, collected over the years. It didn’t work for me – Lauren is still a first rate singer, but I think that she is more than pop. I’ll be adding Mantra to my 2024 favourites… maybe A Work of Fiction too… but too many of the tracks here were a bit too ‘beige’ for my liking – Sorry Lauren (I really did want to love this album too).
