Blue Roses – Blue Roses

Blue Roses is the project of 21 year old West Yorkshire resident Laura Groves, and if that name rings faint bells it's because she's been a touted singer-songwriter knocking around the new British folk underground under her own name since 2006. Most recently, she contributed to 'Inkjet Lakes' and 'Relentless Fours' on the stellar Grammatics album. Adopting a 'band' name towards the end of last year seems to have been a way of setting herself aside from the inevitable Laura Marling comparisons that are automatically placed on any acoustic guitar or keyboard toting female.Her past hasn't been completely abandoned however. 'I Am Leaving', a single from a good eighteen months ago, shows she was quite capable of fine, straight ahead fingerpicked, swooningly sad glory. It also showcased her delicately skyscraping voice that floats somewhere between an Anglicised Regina Spektor and Joanna Newsom, without the stylised quirks of either. At other times it's clear to see that working under those auspices may have seemed limiting to her ambition. Groves cites Kate Bush as a major inspiration and there are signs of the vaulting singular ambition that defined Bush's debut album The Kick Inside. Self-produced, it has a feeling of wanting to sound fresh - a gloriously open melancholy. Joni Mitchell is another influence that comes to mind, the same kind of open heartbreak over spare, deceptively complex guitar and piano. The lyrics deal in almost too personal emotions and allusions. She weaves tales of lost love and the wider world it revolves around as if nobody had thought of anything so opaque before. 'Cover Your Tracks' builds on delicate guitar, decorative piano and a growing group of backing vocalists to sound like something grand without becoming sonically all-encompassing. 'Can't Sleep' is an exercise in her own vocal abilities, ranging from almost lullaby to fiery dramatic peaks, wrapped in regret and almost Bon Iver-like in its deceptive tranquility. 'I Wish I...' uses those keening vocals against solitary dramatic piano to extend itself fully. Single 'Doubtful Comforts' uses thumb piano to sound like a mentally broken musical box ballerina given voice, backed by Groves' own multitracked wordless vocals.There may be some naivety about it, some moments when Groves is still evidently in thrall to her heroines, but to try and fit her into a stylistic box, whether English folk, anti-folk or New Weird Americana, feels a little glib. As much as the aforementioned there's an air of Bat For Lashes or Wind In The Wires era Patrick Wolf - that same kind of smoky, part-mysterious inventiveness on their own emotional hard terms. Groves' is by no means a fully formed talent, but this debut album provides plenty of promise to go on and develop further. 79%Blue Roses on Myspace