FEATURE:
Second Spin
Alex Lahey - The Best of Luck Club
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THIS is one of these Second Spins…
where I am focusing on an album that is underplayed rather than underrated. Melbourne-born Alex Lahey put out her second studio album, The Best of Luck Club, in 2019. It follows her exceptional debut, I Love You Like a Brother. The second album, whilst awesome, did not score quite the same huge reviews as the debut. With producer Catherine Marks on board, I think that The Best of Luck Club is a more rewarding and deeper listen. I feel the variety is wider and each song makes a bigger impact. Most reviews were positive – though one does not hear many of the songs from The Best of Luck Club on the radio. It is an album that people should check out. I am going to feed in a couple of reviews soon enough. Before then, Lahey was interviewed by The Guardian. We discover more about her background and working with Catherine Marks. It seems that Nashville provided particular inspiration:
“Lahey grew up in Melbourne but recently moved away to be closer to her girlfriend in Sydney. When we meet there, she’s preparing for the release of her follow-up record, The Best of Luck Club.
“If the spectrum for I Love You Like a Brother was this,” Lahey holds her palms out on the cafe table as if she’s measuring a small fish she’s just caught, “now I’ve immediately stretched it like that.” Her hands spring apart, illustrating the comparative scope she took to album number two.
In broadening that spectrum, Lahey found herself revelling in her music’s stylistic differences rather than manufacturing links between them.
When writing in Nashville, she says: “I was playing with the idea of, ‘What place do these songs belong in?’ ” She found the answer not far away. “I went to [local dive] Dino’s and realised they belong in a shit bar.” The scene she encountered there brought her fuzzy idea into sharp relief.
“The thing I really loved about [the dive bar scene] was the lack of pretentiousness. It doesn’t matter what kind of day you’ve had, it doesn’t matter how heavy or light you’re feeling … everyone has a seat at the table. It became apparent that the songs are in fact like these short stories of every individual in the space.”
Suddenly it was fine if one song was direct and charged, and another was more unassuming; each track had its own personality, like the characters hanging at Dino’s. To help translate her concept and its endless list of references – from Twin Peaks to Sheryl Crow to Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii – Lahey called upon Catherine Marks, a Melbourne-bred producer who is now based in the UK, where her work for artists like Wolf Alice and The Wombats earned her the 2018 UK Producer of the Year award.
“I don’t know if I would describe the record as being maximalist but I would describe it as being postmodern,” Lahey says, hitting on a description that lights up Marks’s face in recognition of what I realise is a beloved reference between them.
While the relationship between the two is core to the album’s success, Lahey doesn’t want the album’s story to be framed around gender. Celebrating the “women-make-album-together” angle makes something seem “special” that they both hope will soon not be special at all. “There is something about owning [that narrative] that makes other people feel like they can’t do it,” Lahey says”.
I hope that we get more music from Alex Lahey. Whilst I Love You Like a Brother is a great debut, there is something even stronger and more striking about The Best of Luck Club. When they reviewed the album, this is what DIY had to say:
“Alex Lahey’s debut ‘I Love You Like A Brother’ was jam-packed with hooks, wit and charm, a standout first effort from the Melbourne songwriter. Follow-up ‘The Best Of Luck Club’ largely treads the same path; choruses burst out with exuberance, vocals are delivered with knowing winks, and, in particular on self-care anthem ‘Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself’, it’s largely a sensitive, caring listen. However, while ‘I Love You Like A Brother’ was littered with memorable choruses that would be lodged in your brain after one listen, it takes a good while of digging into ‘The Best Of Luck Club’ to find something that sticks. Alex has said that the album tracks “the highest highs and the lowest lows” of her life so far, but upon listening - despite an overall likeability and affable sheen - it’s a little flatter than that”.
I agree that The Best of Luck Club demands a few listens. I think that there are songs that hit you on the first listen. If some found it less immediate compared with I Love You Like a Brother, others found it more nuanced and ambitious.
I wonder, for those who did not give The Best of Luck Club a glowing review, whether they were looking for something very similar to I Love You Like a Brother. Lahey definitely changed and switched things for her second album. This is what CLASH observed in their review:
“After finishing for the day in her Nashville studio, Alex Lahey spent her evenings descending downwards into dive bars, past peeling posters of ‘60s rock bands. The walls were adorned in salubrious red, the leather upholstery shaped by the backsides of regulars who rarely leave for home. Rather than be intimated by the clientele, Lahey instead struck up conversations. Out of these somewhat debauched encounters, she created something gold and shiny.
‘The Best Of Luck Club’ – the Australian’s sophomore record – is an unashamed collection of maximalist glam-rock. The freedom Nashville’s dive bar scene granted Lahey shines gloriously from each of its well-worn corners. These are places with no judgement, where anonymous visitors have no history and the chance to be whoever they want to be. That sense of liberty left the Melbourne multi-instrumentalist – drums are the only thing she doesn’t play on the record – emboldened. She gave absolutely zero f***s when it came to making ‘The Best Of Luck Club’, and the results are dazzling.
Lahey reclaimed her childhood saxophone for the project, and its strung-out notes at the end of glam-rock banger ‘Don’t Be So hard of Yourself’ symbolise the decadent excess of ‘The Best of Luck Club.’ It’s overflowing with arena-ready choruses, shameless licks of the guitar and heart-warmingly candid lyrics. “Let’s combine all our books and records and forget what belongs to who,” she sings on closer ‘I Want To Live With You’.
The album has immense scale, wonderfully indulgent soundscapes and limitless sing-alongs. Not all the songs come with huge choruses, though: ‘Misery Guts’ sees Lahey frantically spit over a post-punk riff that could’ve been pulled straight from Arctic Monkeys’ debut, while piano-led ballad ‘Unspoken History’ is aimless, leaving the listener in a state of flux. But putting these anomalies aside, ‘The Best of Luck Club’ quite simply kicks ass”.
If you have not heard The Best of Luck Club, then give it a moment and some time. It is a fantastic release from Alex Lahey. Let’s hope, as I say, that the Australian artist has more work in her. She is a fantastic talent! That is on display…
RIGHT through The Best of Luck Club.