Music Review // Jessica Lea Mayfield – Make My Head Sing
They say that the slow
burners are the best, and whoever the oft quoted ‘they’ is there is something
of the truth about that statement. Make My Head Sing, the new release from
Jessica Lea Mayfield is definite slow burner. Standing on a line somewhere between
grunge and alt-rock, there is much to love about the album if you enjoy
building tension and the kind of music that made early Hole albums so vital.
Over ten tracks Mayfield
proves herself more than worthy of your listening time as the album drives
along at its own semi-speedy pace. The guitars are constant, forceful and catch
your attention, driving along at a graceful yet never sedate pace. The
comforting yet dark comfort that comes from grunge is well placed with the
drone inspired vox that keep your attention as opposed to making you hit the
forward button.
Highlights include the
quietly creepy yet very catchy I Wanna Love You, with some choice lyrics to
boot. Recalling the underscore of menace found on Garbage’s debut album, there
is a definite playback often factor here, and with a chorus like ‘I’m insane I
wanna love you’ running round the corridors of your mind it’s no wonder. The
rest of the album isn’t quite as catchy, relying instead on the aforementioned guitar
to propel it along, almost to the level of sounding like a particularly fascinating
drone collage on occasion.
Things pick up though, in
terms of pace at least, as the album begins its end coda. No Fun is a beguiling
voice and riff sound piece that really works; the gothic imagery of the vocals
well worth listening to. Then we get to
Seein* Starz, which adds more to the sonic palette and works well as an album
closer. With that underlying sense of sadness coming up to the fore, this is
the kind of song that feels like a closer to a particularly dark piece of
American fiction. It may have ended, but the feeling won’t leave you just yet…
(S.Gahan.)