VV – Shift
It feels like VV, formerly VV Brown, formerly Vanessa Brown, has been going through some sort of permanent identity crisis. Even now, after launching new single Shift and her forthcoming third album under the moniker VV, her YouTube channel still refers to her as VV Brown. Moulded into a sort of doo-wop throwback in 2009 for her debut Travelling Like the Light, she then scrapped a major label follow-up, citing creative differences, a move that usually leads to years in the wilderness. Instead, she launched her own label, YOY Records, and released 2013’s much darker Samson & Delilah, a densely layered electro-pop affair featuring her stone-cold banger, The Apple. Now just VV, Shift is the first taste of her as-yet-untitled new album, a collaboration with producer Nearly Native, who Brown found on Soundcloud. Musically a little lighter and sprightlier than Samson & Delilah, it’s still not quite the return to the big-chorused pop of her debut, but there’s a lot to love in its squelchy, ever-shifting electro-throb. Plus, the video features her wandering around a warehouse sporting a big silver lampshade on her head, and sometimes that’s all you can ask for.
Chvrches – Never Ending Circles
Scottish electro-pop trio Chvrches launched a second single from their forthcoming second album, Every Open Eye, last month with the streamlined rush of Leave a Trace, a song Lauren Mayberry referred to as their “nastiest, snidest tune”. While that may be true lyrically (some of the lines are punctuated by the cold kiss off: “But you got it wrong”), the real nastiness arises in follow-up Never Ending Circles. Opening with an ever-expanding, constantly looping synth riff, it pulls off the same neat trick that made their debut so thrilling by underpinning Mayberry’s bright vocal melodies with a rumbling sonic swarm that seems to edge ever closer. Even when the middle eight arrives and everything drops away suddenly, there’s still a bubbling sense of menace that gives the last crash of the chorus that extra weight.
Loreen – I’m in It With You
It’s a testament to the high calibre of pop songwriting in Sweden that, in 2011, Lorine Zineb Nora Talhaoui, aka Loreen, didn’t even make it through to the final Eurovision qualifying round with the plainly amazing My Heart is Refusing Me. Instead, she decided to release it as a single the following month and scored a Swedish top 10 hit. A year later, she returned to the qualifying rounds with Euphoria, a song that took My Heart is Refusing Me’s template of amazingness and built a palace of brilliance on it. She won the entire competition, Euphoria was a top 3 hit in the UK and the rest is history. Only that’s not really been the case, because, so far, she’s been unable to squirm free of Eurovision, showing up again in 2014 to perform We Got the Power during the half-time interval. This time, however, the song sunk without a trace. Taking more time with her second album, Paperlight, she’s steadily re-emerging as an artist outside the show, and new single I’m in It With You should help with that process. Co-written by Kiesza, it’s a beautifully constructed ballad that’s been produced for maximum dramatic impact, all blustery strings, fragile pianos and the sort of electronic touches that hint at impending doom. It’s also got a chorus so big you could probably spot it from space.
Lana Del Rey – High By the Beach
Lana Del Rey’s debut album, Born to Die, sold over 7m copies worldwide and made her a cultural phenomenon. Not only was she hugely successful in all the ways pop stars have been for decades – top 10 singles, massive radio play, world tours – but she also seemed to swallow the internet whole. Think pieces fought with gifs that fought with memes, until you felt even Lana Del Rey was sick of Lana Del Rey. In fact, last year’s follow-up album Ultraviolence now feels like the monochrome hangover to Born to Die’s classy but messy debutant ball. Having calmed the storm slightly – Ultraviolence sold well but nowhere near Born to Die’s numbers – her forthcoming third album, Honeymoon (apparently due next month), hints at a return to Born to Die’s more widescreen drama. Released with little fanfare last month, the title track is perhaps a little too much of the Lana Del Rey of old; while it sighs and groans luxuriantly in all the right places, it feels slightly like she’s on autopilot. Lead single proper, High By the Beach, at least tries to add something new to the mix, updating Born to Die’s polite hip-hop stylings to include a vague whiff of trap that underpins the swirling immediacy of the surprisingly straightforward chorus. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Ultraviolence era was its lack of visual flair, a point rectified brilliantly in High By the Beach’s pastel-coloured, gun-heavy, paparazzi-killing video.
Astropol – Just Before Our Love Got Lost
Astropol, aka Shout Out Louds’ Bebban Stenborg, producer Björn Yttling and the intriguingly named Smash, first appeared on the recent compilation album by label and “artist collective” Ingrid. Founded by 13 musicians, including Lykke Li, Miike Snow and Peter Bjorn & John, the collective become a fertile ground for inter-label collaborations, hence the trio’s first single, Sound of a Heart That Breaks. While that one trundles along nicely enough, the real alchemy happens on its follow-up, Just Before Our Love Got Lost, premiered here. Opening with moody, hovering synths and pitter-patter drums, it steadily blossoms into its gorgeous chorus, Stenborg sighing, “You can love a lie, but you can’t lie to love” with shrugging shoulders near audible. Just after the chorus glides into view the second time, the line “Love makes you cry” is tacked onto the end just to make the whole thing that bit more devastating.