Låpsley - Cautionary Tales Of Youth

On third album ‘Cautionary Tales of Youth’, atop teary synths, Låpsley is untethered - the record’s electronic sound mimics the reckless placelessness that surrounds the emotions of a break-up. Debut ‘Long Way Home’ and follow-up ‘Through Water’ saw self-assertion through moody experimental music, but this time she embraces cooler, bigger, brighter, more cohesive pop sensibilities, and never loses her invaluable intention. A willingness to enjoy rediscovery means there’s little time to collapse into grief, and in hotels, high rises and planes she breaks - then regenerates - her devotion to love (“I just want a love that makes me levitate”). ‘32 Floors’ is an infectious UK garage-inspired earworm about jumping headfirst into a new relationship. ‘Smoke and Fire’ is mournful yet wistful, indebted to a vast choiry bridge and bleeping synths reminiscent of Lorde’s teen crises on ‘Pure Heroine’. Meanwhile, the arid, euphoric ‘Hotel Corridors’ exposes the loneliness of the in-between over reverberating, tugging synths. There are whispers of similarity to her queer contemporaries, too, from Shura (’Pandora’s Box’) to Years & Years (’Nightingale’), that make this break-up record much more exciting than its conveyor belt competition.