Lucy Rose - This Ain’t The Way You Go Out

It’d be easy to assume that, after Lucy Rose’s recent harrowing health scares - the singer was diagnosed with a rare pregnancy-induced osteoporosis after the birth of her son Otis - her latest musical offering would channel the introverted pain she must have felt in the face of such a debilitating condition. Instead, though, ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’ is a triumphant, joyful record that ushers her into entirely fresh sonic territory. Granted, the raw moments in which she faces her recent experiences are heartbreaking - take ‘This Ain’t The Way’’s lament of “Thought I’d been through the hardest time of my life / I lost who I was and I lost all my fight / It took my body and my soul / and now I’m figuring out what’s left behind” - but there’s also so much vibrancy and life to be felt here too. The jazz-imbued one-two of ‘Light As Grass’ and ‘Could You Help Me’ gives the record a rich introduction, while ‘Sail Away’ descends into a heady, dance-tinged mist; by the time the funky gratitude of ‘The Racket’ closes proceedings (“I won’t let you bring me down”), it’s hard not to be in awe of the scale of her growth and transformation in every sense of the word.