First Love is an album of contradictions and opposites. It is at once pastoral and urban, timeless and modern, sweet and bitter. Initially First Love seems to consist of gentle, whimsical folk, pleasant to listen to but it doesn’t stop you in your tracks. Only with subsequent listens does the power of the album burst through its façade of fragility. This power lies in the gutsy honesty of the lyrics, akin to Laura Marling.

Emmy the Great consists of front woman Emma Lee-Moss, guitarist Euan Hinshelwood and pianist Tom Rogerson. Together they carve out delicate melodies which Lee-Moss’ crystal-clear voice ebbs and flows around. It’s altogether very likeable but, well, lacks a bit of welly. Lyrics are Emmy the Great’s secret weapon and save First Love from mediocrity.

Truths are uttered and taboos cast away in Emmy’s web of wordsmithery. Much of the album examines the unromantic reality of love. City Song encapsulates the contradictions of First Love. It’s a soft ditty strummed on a guitar, accompanied by dulcet backing vocals. A timeless tale of escape to the big city and the love left behind and yet the lyrics are modern, urban and candid:

"Oh the morning fills my mouth up with decay
But I like it, it reminds me how you taste…

They pulled a human from my waist
It had your mouth, it had your face
I would have kept it if I’d stayed"

The theme of untimely pregnancy also crops up in We Almost Had a Baby, a shimmying ‘60s bubblegum number. This isn’t what girls are supposed to sing songs about, but here it is, bloody and screaming - so deal with it, is the message.

The accompaniment on much of the album is minimalist but effective, though The Easter Parade blends piano and strings beautifully to create a richer sound, building in force throughout the track. However on War, another fuller sounding track, Lee-Moss’ vocals get a little lost.

Title track and forthcoming single First Love sees Lee-Moss at her most vehement and compelling. Relationships are always associated with particular songs or albums which become intricately woven into our memories in subsequent years. First Love articulates this phenomenon with Leonard Cohen’s Halleluiah. It weaves lyrics from and references to Halleluiah into the fabric of the song. It brilliantly captures the joy and the sting of first love in a truly innovative way.

It pays to spend time with this album – the danger is that people will dismiss it before getting to know it.

Release date: 02/09/09
Artist website: www.emmythegreat.com
Label: Close Harbour

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