If Tori Amos stole Harriet Wheeler’s larynx and used it to make a
baroque folk album with Rufus Wainwright’s cabaret sensibility, you’d
get Blue Roses, the eponymous debut of Yorkshire
vocalist/guitarist Laura Groves.
To call this atmospheric would be a vast understatement. At times,
it’s so overly lush and steeped in theatrics that you’ll be
dragged—like it or not—into a weird liminal space between a
pagan woodland and a Victorian symphony hall.
When it’s beautiful—and it often is—Blue Roses is
exquisite. “I Am Leaving” is a standout, from the synth-layered intro
to the toy-music-box fuzz that underscores the chorus. Groves sings,
“Oh soulless city / Your changing skyline is twisting me up inside,”
and that contrast of urbanity with her pastoral aesthetic is
lovely.
“I Wish I …” is a weak spot, with ponderous piano and joyless
strings. Groves has spoken about her love of sad songs—Joni
Mitchell’s Blue is a vital reference point—but the
affectation of some of these songs garbles the melancholia.
Groves is best when she’s not self-consciously ethereal and gives in
to the plaintive, singing-your-heart-out impulse that motivates the
best folk artists, like on “Coast,” where she yearns to take a sea
voyage “as the storm builds.”
This is the kind of record that demands a suspension of disbelief in
order to enjoy. If you want to be entirely consumed in a rococo
fairyland, then break out the absinthe, light up your candelabra and
put on Blue Roses.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.