<span><span>- Leanne Tennant is a bit of a quiet achiever?! Quietly getting write-ups in French blogs, quietly getting <strong>Ben Ely</strong> to remix a tune, quietly featured in Rolling Stone and compared to <strong>Lana Del Ray</strong> in the German music press, CLASH mag in London, quietly invited to a showcase in Malaysia, quietly winning a mentorship with <strong>Kram</strong> from <strong>Spiderbait</strong>, quietly getting played on BBC radio and KCRW in LA, quietly getting playlisted on Amazon and Spotify and tripleJ and British frikkin' Airways, and a couple New York magazines, rotation in Scotland, Mexico, supporting <strong>Cold</strong> frikkin' <strong>Chisel</strong>..?!</span></span>
<span><span>Sorry for the laundry list, but sheesh... That legit isn’t even everything.
So it’s okay if you maybe haven’t heard the name so much before, if it’s not so familiar..? That’s cool, but that sh*t is on YOU.. literally the rest of the world has been <em>quietly</em> paying attention for a while now. She was spanking it in the live scene in Briz from about 1996 onwards, quit the game altogether for eight years, but came back around 2013 with a new angle: “I didn’t re-enter it in my teens, I re-entered in my late 20’s and the music industry is ageist, as we know, so I figured if I’m going to do this seriously I just need to work my f*kn ass off, and that’s what I’ve been doing “ ...and she’s been steadily gaining on the field ever since.</span></span>
<span><span>Her new album has two faces: one coming from a live band approach, and another that is more about studio process. LT explains, “ On this record it was approached in two different ways with two different producers… one in the traditional sense, where we played live as a band, and then the other half of the tracks were really quite produced.”
This comes through on tracks like <em>Cherry Cola</em> (almost certainly where the Lana D comparison came from) where the moody tone and reverbed-out backing vocal calls to mind some of <strong>The Cure</strong>’s more reflective moments, or on <em>Blue & Gold</em>, where layers of organ and overdriven guitar punches up the texture and energy way beyond what a classic three-piece lineup could muster.</span></span>
<span><span><em>Bring it All Back</em> is perhaps the most electronic cut on the record, a warm analog bass-synth bubbling away behind snappy drum-programming, but it still feels like it could be a b-side from the <strong>Stone Roses</strong>.</span></span>
<span><span>It’s something she’s keen to dig into deeper, “I had never done it before and so I didn’t know how it would go.. and I just loved it so much that I just can’t wait to get back in there and do more of that stuff! Because I realised, you know, there’s so many ideas that I’ve had floating around in my head for so long, but I’ve never given them a go ‘cause I don’t know how you would play it live. So I just kinda pushed them to the side; and then to get to do all this, it’s just opened up a whole new world for me, which is great!”.</span></span>
<span><span><em>Happiness Is...</em> is all shot through with the honesty of a songwriter who started out as a busker, knowing she had to make it work with clear, direct melodies and strong vocals, and that background still shines through in the album’s more contemplative moments, like <em>Record Stores</em> and closing track <em>Call On Me</em>. Yet there’s also some stadium-level epic rock numbers like <em>Til The Sun Dies</em> and <em>White Lines</em> that would make <strong>Coldplay</strong>’s <strong>Chris Martin</strong> jealous.</span></span>
<span><span>Leanne Tennant was already one to watch, and -<em>just quietly-</em> with new sound-worlds opening up for her in the studio, we all better be paying attention to what’s coming next. </span></span>
<span><span>- Kieran Ruffles.</span></span>
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