It’s a pleasing synchronicity: the very day that Kate Bush, the reclusive queen of quirk-pop, finally leaves her castle in the clouds to release her first album in six years, another Kate with a voice made for echoing around bleak landscapes, and a penchant for drama and the otherworldly, brings out her debut with Austra.
Opener Darken Her Horse is a fitting curtain-raiser of a spellbinding debut which revives the heavily-eyelinered, Elnett-sprayed corpse of British new wave, and casts it in mists of ethereal magic. Hymn-like, all chords and church choir vocals, it slowly builds to surging, Japan-inflected heights which lead you to the ‘floor to bust your best robot moves. As does last single Beat and the Pulse, which evokes the era’s sleazier Soho scene with keyboard lines redolent of 80s revivalists Fischerspooner and Soft Cell chimes. Elsewhere, Hate Crime, with its plentiful "oohoo"s (as beloved by Katie as Kate) and the gorgeous, incantatory The Choke (which is reminiscent of fellow Canadians The Organ) are hook-heavy enough to get you repeating such unlikely mantras as "Sign / The consent forms" as you make extravagant arm movements around the living room. You might feel a little daft, but the odd lyrics only add to this band’s appealing mystery.
Check it out............
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