EP Cover 'These Streets'
Lily Buchanan aka The Graphite Set is a psych folk artist with rock and roll influences. The new EP,These Streets was recorded in a studio Lime house London but Buchanan herself grew up in Scotland. The EP also features guest guitar player Katherine Blamire from The Smoke Fairies. I had a listen to the four tracks and here are my thoughts.
So let's start off with Lily Buchanan’s voice. It is haunting and distinctive and I have to praise her diction, it is faultlessly on point, her voice reminds me of Florence Wench’s from Florence and the Machine, strong and powerful but without the added quirks.
The EP kicks off with the title track These Streets. Firstly, you hear a distant guitar and then the track bursts into a big sound before it slows down again. Buchanan’s vocals are quite articulate in this track. The song has a sense of urgency about it and you’re almost compelled to listen to it as it becomes more dramatic.
The second song Pick Me Up starts with a steady bass pulse and when the vocals come in they are surrounded by a persistent melody of folk pop and psyche rock. The song isn’t as edgy as These Streets and unfortunately Pick Me Up sounds a bit generic and I really didn’t like the record skipping feel to the song about three quarters of the way through.
Surprisingly, The Graphite Set reveals their softer side with the ballad In Your Eyes. This mellow song serves as an interlude between the other tracks, yet it shines on the EP with its simplicity. It is my definite favourite out of the four tracks on the entire EP.
The last track on the EP is titled I See No Lies, which is an upbeat track and an appropriate finish for the extended play.
The EP was okay but it didn’t really excite me musically and some of the tracks sound a little dated and generic. There are some interesting quirks here and there but not enough to make this EP unique.
These Streets EP is slightly disappointing however I can see what The Graphite Set are trying to do and there is definitely potential particularly in Lily Buchanan’s distinctive voice. The band has only been together for a short time and I think that this shows through their music. There's certainly something different about The Graphite Set, something that I can't immediately put my finger on.
Their new EP These Streets is available now.
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