mixtape maestro (2.0)

Previously heralded for sunny, handclap-laden singles that worked a Motown-influenced, ’60′s girl group pop bop angle with bliss-inducing results (“Add Your Light To Mine, Baby”, “Woah Billy”, “White Russian Doll”), Lucky Soul venture a bit darker sonically on new track “A Coming of Age”, the title cut from the British six-piece’s upcoming second set featuring lead singer Ali Howard’s coquettish coos housed within a dramatic display of waltz swing patterns and Bond-esque guitar figures.

The reason for all this grandiose hullabaloo? Some man done done Ali wrong, shattering her young heart and leaving her “cling(ing) to the floor”, fingering the still warm footprints that trace his pathway out of her life. “I thought a friend meant someone to depend on/ Call it a coming of age…come too late,” she sings, the brief pause before those last three words bulging with all kinds of unstated ache and confusion.

Awww. Makes you wanna pull her into a tight embrace and let her know that everything’s gonna be alright.

Pick it up below or as a free download from their website, then proceed to lift your spirits back up with a viewing of their peppy “White Russian Doll” clip.

A Coming of Age, the album, arrives April 19th through Ruffa Lane Records.

DL: “A Coming of Age” (alt)

There may be “dark times ahead”, as frontwoman Ali Howard so delicately coos at the beginning of “Woah Billy”, but not even her edge-of-suicidal, teenybopper longing for the titular heartthrob can disrupt the sugar-high that this new Lucky Soul single produces.

The track’s glammy stomp and handclap-laden girl group giddiness damn near emits rays of sunshine through the speakers, showing little compassion for Howard’s depressed diary entries (“I’m like a flower in the shade,” goes one whine); throw in a sudden gear shift when the production makes a pit-stop at the Studio 54 and briefly get it’s “Hustle” on, sending disco lasers every which way, and you’ve got yourself one of the best pop confections of the year.

It’s only too bad that we’ll have to wait all the way until October to snatch up the rest of these London lads’ much-anticipated sophomore collection.

DL: “Woah Billy” (alt)