Review: Lights – Little Machines

After months of teasing, Lights has finally released her third full length, Little Machines. It’s been three years since Siberia and a lot has happened to Lights, so this album is a whole leap forward.

It opens with three tracks already released online: the slower ‘Portal’, ‘Running With the Boys’ and ‘Up We Go’. ‘Running With the Boys’ seems like the flip side of the coin ‘Pretend’ started in The Listening. It’s much more upbeat than the 2009 release, though, and the lyrics take a more positive angle.

As the album progresses, it’s clear that it’s lost the almost dub-step edge of Siberia, but by no means the electro pop Lights is known for. ‘Muscle Memory’ strongly echoes Lights’s sound from The Listening with an almost haunting edge. In fact, Little Machines is musically much more like The Listening, but it remains clear that she has come a long way since then – the lyrics have taken on a new edge, accentuating the positive in songs such as ‘Meteorites’, blasting the chorus ‘we are gonna see greater heights/ They’ll put our names up in neon lights’.

After marriage and the birth of her first child, Rocket, it’s no wonder Lights is positive in Little Machines – she has a lot to be positive about. Closing track ‘Don’t Go Home Without Me’ (for those without the deluxe version) seems like a perfect way to end the album. It’s tempo is slower than previous songs, bringing the album full circle from ‘Portal’, and talks about the future. Dispelling loneliness even in her later years, this track peaks at the bridge really showing the diversity of Lights’s voice as she flows seamlessly from belting into a gentle falsetto on the line ‘and we’ll go out in style’. This draws the album to a close beautifully.

Every track of Little Machines fits in with the overall sound of the album, like its predecessors, and although it sounds like The Listening it has the maturity of Siberia and then some. Lights’s sound has evolved through each album, and the current product is a strong sound that still leaves room for her to spread her musical wings. Every track on the album is different, and every one fantastic. Whatever Lights does next, it’ll be hard pushed to top Little Machines, but as we know a lot could happen in the next three years.

Catch Lights on tour in the UK next January.

New Music: Lights

Over a year after Siberia Acoustic, three years after Siberia and a whole baby later, Christmas has come early for fans of Lights with 3 huge announcements all in one day.

For the past 10 days, Lights has been teasing fans over social networking with a countdown. Yesterday, she made her quite frankly huge announcement and gave fans everything we could possibly want, all at once. At Scene Fest, she debuted two new songs ‘Up We Go’ and ‘Running With The Boys’, and with yesterday’s announcement came the studio version of ‘Up We Go’ (hopefully a video will follow soon, but let’s not be greedy). The song is certainly more reminiscent of The Listening than Siberia, with more clean cut synth than the almost dub-step vibes we heard in Siberia. Also, the electronic vocal effects are far more prominent in this song, giving it the very electro-pop vibe that Lights is known for. In itself, ‘Up We Go’ is a brilliant choice for first release – the lyrics are beautiful, as always with Lights, yet it’s still upbeat and catchy and will appeal to a wider audience. It also sets up all the positivity that ‘s going to follow; the lyrics are honest but hopeful and it’s refreshing to see an artist put so much of themselves into their music. From this song alone, any listener can tell how much Lights has put into her art. It perfectly captures her progression from the last album whilst still being very recognisable as Lights. Although it sounds different to Siberia, Lights style is completely unmistakable.

Along with ‘Up We Go’, it was also announced that Lights’ third full length Little Machines will be released 23rd September (pre order here), along with a 23 date Canadian/North American tour (tickets on sale Friday) with the promise of more to come. There are various album bundles available which include a coloured vinyl and some autographed goodies which Lights has assured fans will all be personally signed by her and not printed on. You can listen to some live recordings of ‘Running With The Boys’ on youtube to get a further taster of what’s to come. Judging by those two songs I’ve heard so far, the album is going to be a strong follow up to Siberia, and well worth investing in. I saw Lights perform live back in 2012 at the O2 Academy in Birmingham, and her performance was flawless and energetic so I can definitely recommend catching her on tour if she’s coming to your area. Whether you’ve heard of Lights or not, if you’re a fan of electro-pop I’d highly recommend listening to her music.