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LIZ LAWRENCE RELEASES NEW ALBUM ‘PITY PARTY’

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SEVEN YEARS AFTER HER LAST SOLO ALBUM, LIZ LAWRENCE IS BACK WITH NEW ALBUM, PITY PARTY, VIA RECORD LABEL SECOND BREAKFAST.

Since her solo debut in 2012 with album Bedroom Hero when Lawrence established herself, she hasn’t laid low. The past seven years have brought about music as one half of the duo Cash & David, as well as collaborating and touring with Bombay Bicycle Club. This latest album gives the impression that those years have only spurred Lawrence on for a new pursuit in her solo work, a chance to feel comfortable working on her own and creating her personal sound.

This self-produced album is undoubtedly full of catchy indie-pop tracks, but not the type that make you squirm. Creating songs that are equally as personal as they are universal, Lawrence highlights this aptly in track ‘USP’; while coming at us with a memorable melody, it harks to the feelings of being finite and insecurity, that more often or not seems inescapable. The artist has explained that “almost every generation is scared that their generation is going to be the last one… but it’s quite hard to deny that it feels as if we’re hurtling towards disaster.” So I guess that is what draws me in with Pity Party; while also highlighting humbling issues… it also makes me want to have a dance!

Upon writing the album, Lawrence wrote six of the songs in just five days, while holed up in a friends’ house in Cornwall, forcing herself out of her comfort zone and dealing with a solitary existence that proved to work in her favour. “It was magical,” she explains, “It ignited the whole thing, and the songs just came to me. I hardly did a thing.” By both exploring the world and analysing personal experience, the album is both unvarnished and willing. ‘Navigator’ touches on the truths of finding refuge in a lover, and giving yourself up to the help the care you need and deserve. It acts as a reminder to stop being a dick to those that you love and love you the most.

‘Shoes’ is a more paired back track, with just Lawrence and guitar – a dreamy duo. The song acts as a solace of sorts and I think speaks to women in the industry, perhaps women in general – “Don’t underestimate me, I am not a given”. This is exactly what Lawrence has done in producing this album herself, and coming out with a sucker-punch of an album that is kind of a middle finger to the male dominated world we find ourselves in.

An indie-pop album that is catchy, relevant, and not a copy of everything else is hard to come by these days, but Liz Lawrence has succeeded in doing all of the above and more. Maybe we should all hole ourselves up in a house in Cornwall, seems to have done the world of good for her.

Liz Lawrence is going on a solo tour next year, performing in Brighton, London, Manchester and Glasgow in February. You can get tickets for the tour here. Following that, she is also supporting Bombay Bicycle Club , along with The Big Moon, on their UK tour next February, tickets for which are here.

And if that wasn’t enough, you can catch her at Rough Trade over the next week in Nottingham, Kingston, Bristol and London.