Rachel Aroesti 

LUH: Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing review – passion project from ex-Wu Lyf member

  
  

Passion project … Ellery Roberts, left, and Ebony Hoorn of LUH.
Emotional goth-rock … Ellery Roberts, left, and Ebony Hoorn of LUH. Photograph: Francesca Allen

Ellery Roberts’ former band Wu Lyf were accomplished hype machinators, generating industry appetite for their guitar rock by turning novelty tricks like advertising demo tapes of their guitar rock for £50 on Myspace. Roberts’ new outfit is seemingly uninterested in such hijinks – but that’s also the sell. Created with his Dutch artist-girlfriend Ebony Hoorn, LUH is billed as the pair’s passion project, and there’s a thread of fevered, vaguely political idealism that runs through the album. That hook, however, is no match for the music itself, in which the gravelly bombast of Roberts’ vocal – which sacrifices consonants, syllables, even whole words to a stream of rousing vowels – is nicely supplemented by Hoorn’s heavily accented near-monotone, over a mix of electronics and emotional goth-rock. It’s a combination that is gratifyingly peculiar and, thanks to a knack for satisfying toplines, holds a significant amount of jubilant appeal.


 

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