Album Review: Something Blue

Something Blue is an Album by half Greek, half Persian, half English Lexytron. It’s the debut album from Lexy, mixed and mastered in London by Marco Meloni. She describes it as “an alternative girl’s guide to love, loss and lust”. I love that description. She also characterises the music as “flinging the dirt and danger of rock n roll against the bleeding heart and melody of Mozart”, which I also love, but I need to stop letting her do my job for me by just using her cool press quotes.

The musical influences fan out farther than just Mozart with rock music, too: In places like I’m Not a Disco and in the bridge of Couples there are shades of Robots in Disguise. Harmony parts like The Corrs and the Cranberries are present in Blue. Blackmail touches on tiny moments of several acts like Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Placebo, The Bollock Brothers and The Kills.

The album spans 11 tracks and straddles several genres along it’s run time; from the punk technicalities of Blackmail right up to the Romani themes of Gypsy Blue. The golden sweet spot lies within tracks 4, 5, 6 and 7 (Couples, Intermittent, 21.5 and The Veil of Veronica), which make up a perfect sample of the variance in sound and consistency of the heart stomping subject matter.

Couples could well be the centerpiece of the album: it’s strong and relatable theme makes it a great standalone single while also providing a turning point for the album as a whole. It feels like the beginning of a second act. That jungle beat and “ohh la la la” parts are super catchy too.

Intermittent comes in as a fast paced slap to the face after the upper tempos of Blackmail and I’m Not a Disco and mid tempos of Blue and Couples. It’s the shortest song at 2 minutes and a bundle of pop-punk energy. It feels like a pallet cleanser, a chance to get up and shake your body loose before the show resumes. You know, kind of like an intermission.

21.5 is another really strong, clear concept presented in a novel way. “You’ll change the sheet and wash your lover” is a standout lyric from a standout song.

The Veil of Veronica is the first track to don a piano as the lead instrument and the change-up reinforces this album’s commitment to musical momentum and development. It plays out like a Dresden Dolls take on Wuthering Heights. The stripped back instrumentation is involved and compelling and the refrains are at once singable and evocative, punctuated by the great low harmonizing male vocals underneath it.

The rest of Something Blue has some great moments: In The Box has a vibe changing Tom-heavy post chorus, while the swelling in the opening synth line caught my attention on Brand New as well as the super cool left turn of French over a drum machine. By Tell the Vein though, the tempo has stayed fairly uniform for a few songs, which is more starkly noticeable in the wake of the variance in the first half of the album but the second half of Gypsy Blue mixes things up before the end of the album.

Something Blue left me with the aftertaste of such a collection of romantic mishaps that I felt emotionally exhausted on behalf of Lexytron. But there’s a prevailing sense of optimism that I get from the experience too. That strange sense of well-being sent me back to the start many times trying to figure out what it was that left me so warm despite the many harrowing stories. Each time I was reminded of where I’d started with it, and I think that journey being such a winding road musically helps translate a feeling of growth at the end of Something Blue. It takes you somewhere, gives you something and leaves you
feeling different than you did at the start.