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Lovelife  >>

Split  >>

It's amazing how far Lush came between previous album Spooky and this. While the haunting swathes of sound still prevail, they gained the confidence to bring the lyrics to the fore. And so we discover gems like "Light From A Dead Star", a tearful rumination over a man who "lives his life in a world full of women". "Kiss Chase", meanwhile, has one of those perfect melodies that you instantly fall in love with. The real diamond at the heart of it, and one of Lush's finest moments, is "Hypocrite", with its unforgiving drums and the scathing attack on less than faithful partners. "Don't even try to hide behind that stupid smile", spits Miki, and you know it's no idle threat. Split is the sound of an intelligent band realising how good they really are. We should be grateful that they put it all on a record. --Emma Johnston

Ciao! - The Best of Lush  >>

Where Lush is concerned, the career-spanning retrospective of Ciao! is more necessary than usual. This is for two reasons. The first, and most immediate, is that many of Lush's finest moments appeared on their first two EPs, "Scar" and, especially, the Robin Guthrie-produced "Mad Love", and neither are terribly easy to get hold of. The second, and more important, reason is that this compilation makes it clear just how much arrestingly great work this (still) largely underrated band were responsible for. Lush existed at a period when indie groups were still indie groups, operating on the cultural and musical margins, drawing their inspiration from left-field sources like My Bloody Valentine and Hugo Largo. Lush's later singles, including "Single Girl" and "Ladykiller", almost earned them a slice of the mid-1990s Britpop boom enjoyed by so many of their friends and contemporaries (Pulp's Jarvis Cocker duets with Lush vocalist Miki Berenyi on the title track) but the songs that stand tallest now--particularly "Nothing Natural" and "Light From A Dead Star"--are the less breezily poppy and more lyrically opaque tracks.--Andrew Mueller

Ladykillers [CD 1]  >>

Hypocrite  >>

Spooky  >>

Once upon a time, there was a movement (or lack of--that was the point) called shoegazing. The leader of shoegazing was a princess with bright red hair called Miki, along with her loyal troops, Emma, Chris and Steve. As Lush, they made beautiful music. Spooky is full of dark, serrated guitars and sighing vocals. It's difficult to make out what is being said a lot of the time, but like the Cocteau Twins, the sound is so lovely that Miki could be singing her shopping list and you still wouldn't care. Even though this is by no means their best album, it still stands up for itself when many of their peers have disappeared without anyone particularly caring. Fantastic late night noise for drifting off to sleep. --Emma Johnston