Album Review: Keep On Dancin's - Black Lassie

Black Lassie starts with a breath. It could be a sigh, or the kind of steadying inhalation that comes before a confession. Or maybe it's a warning to the listener: sometimes listening to this record hurts. But it's the most pleasurable sort of pain. 

This album is a collection of songs that locals Keep On Dancin's have recorded since 2009, and it's similar in tone to their 2011 record The End Of Everything, with Jacinta Walker's weighty, dusty vocal at the centre, and that fucking amazing reverb-laced guitar from Yuri Johnson supporting and gently veiling her words in perfect measures. However, maybe because it's without a happy-sad song like There Goes Your Guy off TEOE, Black Lassie seems even darker and more intense. 

Custard covering opener Nervous Breakdance and closer The End Of Everything are highlights. The former starts out echoing and lazily pretty, Walker slowly drawing out Dave McCormack's story of moving cities to get over a lost love, before the chorus hits with crashing cymbals and a defiant declaration that, “It'll be over in a week or two/I won't wanna hang around with you” – her voice swimming in bitterness and a sadness that says that more than anything she's trying to convince herself. The catharsis that drips from this track is addictive and so heart sore. The latter is the simplest track on the album, but maybe the most affecting – ripples of guitar and fuzz back Walker's most exposed vocal as she sings that “this might be the end of everything”. 

There's plenty in the body of the album to love as well: excellent sultry instrumental Senator Steve and the frantic Feathers in particular. This is a record to be proud of, and the most exciting thing is that you leave it so assured that these guys are only gonna get better.