In my head there's another world where instead of squeaky '70s throwbacks like Mika and the Scissor Sisters having number ones all the time, bands like Lau have them instead.
How can I convey how excited listening to Butcher Boy, the first single from their first album, made me? Traditional Celtic folk but with a modern spin, a great leaping orchestral arrangement shot through with perfect fiddle, rising then falling away to bare guitar, the song dwindling to its sad denouement - just too good.
Vocalist Kris Drever spins a tale of a girl who pursues her love of money and deserts her butcher boy for a rich man, the tune moving from minor key to minor key in melancholic majesty, runs of rising notes giving a sense of intensity as the song moves from measured narrative through anger to pity. Drever's vocal is exceptionally well controlled, touched with nasal regret as Aidan O’Rourke’s fiddle playing capers around it, while the third band member, Martin Green, draws it all together with his piano accordion playing.
On the strength of this I'm off to download the debut album, Lightweights and Gentlemen, also out now.
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