Lavender Diamond Imagine Our Love by: Steve Scully Mon:14-May-07 Label: Matador Year: 2007 WB rating 55 out of 100

You’ll be amazed by just how happy Becky Stark and her fellow Lavender Diamonds seem to be.

‘Oh No’, the opening track of Imagine Our Love, is an anthemic pop track, oozing with an excess of hope and optimism. Despite the chorus lyrics, in which Stark asks “when will I love again?” the overall sense of the song is not one of unrequited, or unfulfilled love, but of hope and, ultimately joy. The music, rather than the lyrics, is the telling element in this song. Even though she may be singing of despair, Stark’s vocals are nothing short of sublime, and the joyous mix of piano, acoustic guitar and an upbeat rhythm – a folk/country take on the ‘We Will Rock You’ beat – adds even more to the cheery feel. You can only wonder whether this was deliberate, or merely a poor choice of lyrics, but one thing’s for sure: you’ll keep listening, if not just to hear Stark sing another note. Her voice is absurdly good.

Really, Lavender Diamond is all about Becky Stark. Unfortunately for the balance of the album, and the balance of the band’s sound as a whole, the production reflects this vocals-biased approach. Throughout the record, piano parts that should be the musical driving force behinds songs, like ‘Side of the Lord’, drift into the background with the barely audible strings and guitars. In tracks such as ‘I’ll Never Lie Again’, Lavender Diamond opts for an orchestral feel, but these attempts are rendered useless by the volume of the vocal parts. Stark may exude talent, but whether this is a solo project or not, the album sounds like a showcase not of band-based songwriting, but of Becky and her amazing voice. Aside from the rhythm section’s burst onto the scene with the country beat of the opener, there’s little to get excited about anywhere else on the record, apart from the occasional flourish of strings or the intermittent incorporation of woodwind, no musical flair is shown, and no attention is drawn to the band nor any aspect of the musical accompaniment.

For a group so vocal-centric, the lyrics are nothing short of disappointing. Although she delivers the lyrics with gusto and determination, Becky Stark falls far too often into the dark pit of despair known as predictability and cliché. “You dance like it was the first time/You dance with all of your mind/and you sing like it was the last time,” Stark croons on ‘Dance Until It’s Tomorrow’, and come to think of it, it’s not simply cliché or predictability to which she falls victim, but over-simplicity and triteness. For a band so dedicated to folk sensibilities, Lavender Diamond needs more depth to each lyric, rather than just pretty, fluffy clouds and cute little bunnies sniffing lollipops and licking poppies. Great folk singers of the past – Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell etc. – treated their lyricism as a craft equal to, if not more important, than their music. Even modern folkies like Devendra Banhart – who has notably fallen victim himself to overly-whimsical lyrics about little yellow spiders and such – mix their apparent lyrical simplicity with inventive wordplay and song-craft; Lavender Diamond offers far too many “my heart is in a shadow without you” and “find a way to love you” moments (see ‘My Heart Is A Monday’ and ‘Find A Way’ respectively) to warrant any real respect as lyricists.

As far as the ballad-type numbers are concerned, Lavender Diamond falls even farther when trying to inject a much-needed dose of the ‘sads’. ‘Garden Rose’ shows of Stark’s immense talent again, as her clean vocals soar, but ultimately the song is a tiresome little piece, with little going for it apart from these strong vocals and a relatively pleasant, string-infused chorus. In ‘I’ll Never Lie Again’, the well-executed, but yet-again drowned-out piano, is offset quite oppressively by forcefully strummed acoustic guitar and an over-the-top string arrangement. The woodwind, making a gorgeous entrance at the song’s mid-point hints at a possible crescendo... but it never arrives. The song just falls limp.

Too often on the record are unimaginative, farcical melodies made centrepiece. A clear example of this comes is ‘Here Comes One’, in which the clumsily-strummed guitar and plonking piano play off a grating, if somewhat infectious vocal line. Even Stark’s immense talent can’t hide the fact that, rather than singing “here comes one” in the chorus, she could very easily be the musical guest introducing the number of the day on Sesame Street; “num-ber one,” she’d sing, and Cookie Monster, Elmo and the gang would be dancing around, puppet-arms flailing all over the joint. It’s all well and good to be happy, and to evoke this emotion through song, but sometimes there are moments of complete ridiculousness, to which you can’t help but shake your head and wonder about the contents of this person’s lunch-box (and don’t give me that ‘the only drugs I’m on are love and happiness’, because I know you’re lying through your sugar-rotten, ground-down teeth).

I once read something to the effect of: ‘heart’s okay once in a while, but sometimes you need some guts’. It was in reference, I think, to the necessity of Johnny Cash in everyone’s life. I think this is probably quite applicable to Lavender Diamond. For a group who describes themselves as ‘the original sound of love’, they make love seem an overwhelmingly boring and overbearing prospect. Sometimes love is much tougher than these dancing, singing hippies want you to think. Music like this makes me wish upon the artist some sort of pain, if only for their music to develop more depth. Despite all the negatives, as she hits a ridiculously high note in ‘Dance Until Tomorrow’, and whips out another couple in ‘When You Wake For Certain’, you can’t help but feel that there’s enough talent for greatness to be well within Becky Stark’s grasp, if not Lavender Diamond’s.