- Laura Imbruglia’s new record, Scared of You, is her first in six years. On first listen, it’s clear her delivery and structure has matured in the interim, with considerably less cowbell, crisp production and nuanced exploration of multiple genres across the ten tracks. What’s still most exciting, though, is her brash refusal to file down any of the jagged edges that are similarly embraced by many of my favourite fully-grown female musicians - Jen Cloher, Jodie Flange and Patience Hodgson all come to mind. In several really delightful moments, a growl or a scream escapes at the tail of acidic lyrics, connecting the record back to the Melbournite’s lo-fi roots.
Lead single Carry You Around marries nostalgic, doubled Kim Wilde-esque vocals with unrelenting guitar in a dissection of frustrating dependence in a relationship. The punchy, direct address is a far cry from the honied warbling Imbruglia is known for, but she hasn’t abandoned country just yet. On CBT, Imbruglia croons that the “jury’s out on whether it’s cruel or kind / to force a normal life on a creative mind”, and asks her subject to “take me as I am” over rolling cymbals. Now I’m Mum is a crash course in how a new wave of alt-country can transplant updated themes onto classic aesthetics with great success. Imbruglia describes motherhood as a suggestion that would make her sisters “cackle”, then chronicles her own path to having kids: “I could think of three good men to knock me up / And if I didn’t care about looks, five / and so I settled on the fertile one / now I’m Mum.”
Heavier tracks The Creeps and You’re Shit prove self-righteousness is a mood you can dance to. On the former, Imbruglia’s bruising contempt for an ex is punctuated by distorted guitar slides which demand moving hips and bobbing heads. In Give Boys Pink Toys, she weaponised her voice to join the same dialogue as Courtney Barnett’s Nameless, Faceless and Stella Donnelly’s Boys Will Be Boys: “When she’s walking home at a quickened place, it’s not ‘cause she’s participating in a race.”
Half a decade’s break has clearly given Laura Imbruglia a trove of relationships, miscommunications and vulnerabilities to mine with her return. Sink your teeth into Scared of You - it won’t disappoint.
- Aleisha McLaren.