Louise McVey and Cracks In The Concrete -‘Love Lust Tales’ (Flying Teeth Records)

Come on in. Sit down, and admire the gloom and the cobwebs.

Is that a shiver down your spine?

Are you –quite sure– that you’re not alone?

Are you sitting rather unnervedly? Then Louise McVey and Cracks In The Concrete will begin.

I make no apologies for the theatrics. Shut your eyes. This is music to unsettle, and thrill you. No schlocky horror here, but think PJ Harvey circa To Bring You My Love, Carla Buzolich’s work as Evangelista, Kate Bush when she’s at her most chilling (more ‘Infact Kiss’ than ‘Rubberband Girl.’) ‘Let me dream, let me dream,’ she sings on ‘Your Skies’. These are dreams are the most fantastical of nightmares.

It’s gothic as distinct from goth rock, less Sisters Of Mercy and more Great Expectations and The Turn Of The Screw. It’s deeply disturbing musically, not least because of its freeness. With the discordance here, you can imagine a major A&R sucking their teeth and going ‘I don’t hear a single.’

…But: did you hear that? Was that a crack in the floorboards on the album or somewhere else?

One of the most original, unsettling and creative records you’re likely to hear this year.

****

Love Lust Tales is released on Flying Teeth Records on June 15.

Preview the album here

Towards the very end of last year, Louise McVey and Cracks In the Concrete released their debut four track, self-titled EP. It’s absolutely brilliant.

Hailing from Glasgow, and Stirling, and signed to Glasgow’s hip Optimo label, these guys have rightly been picking up some serious blog love in many places (see here, here and here) and quite rightly too. There’s a colly, cold gothic element to these four songs. Don’t think freezing your butt off at a Sisters or Nephilim gig, think the soundtrack to a David Lynch film, set in Glasgow. Think Tori Amos, without the histrionics, or the kind of goddess that Florence and the Machine can only dream of being. Think someone who has the potential to be as groundbreaking as PJ Harvey or Patti Smith.

You heard.

There’s a kind of audio vampire thing going on here, in that once heard, you’ll be bitten and forever smitten. I have been in touch with the lady herself, and she asked me extremely sweetly and politely not to post any mp3s but was fine with streaming.

So, check out the myspace and here on youtube and then go and buy the EP, from iTunes or eMusic and get the vinyl when it comes out.

She is also playing at Limbo tonight in Edinburgh, and it looks like there are upcoming performances in Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Go on…