"Demon", "Nothing to Prove" and "Sugar Coated Lies" by Taylor-Louise
Review
Every so often I have to beg your forgiveness & issue a mea culpa when I miss a release at the point it comes out & have to catch up later. This must take the record though as I'm covering a 2023 one..
When I mentioned in my Pride review how long it had been since I'd written about Taylor-Louise, that's broadly true: "Come By" in 2021. However she has very graciously & politely drawn my attention to "Nothing To Prove", "Demon" and "Sugar Coated Lies" which came out in 2023 and to which I was oblivious. She has kindly forgiven me & I hope that you can find it in your hearts too.
Some people might think that these three ships had long since sailed & hence a review would not really be appropriate.
However as I noted in my Pride article, Taylor-Louise has great new songs like "History" and "She" scheduled to come out and so it seems suitable that before they do, we cast our gaze back onto her most recent releases.
Perhaps even more pertinently, as she said to me "art is art; it doesn't come with a time stamp!" which made me feel a little better. (You can tell she's a coach can't you?)
I think the point I can make is that I can now help join the dots for you from the career high (so far) of 2019's greatly acclaimed ‘Black Heart' EP via "Come By" and this trio towards the imminent songs to demonstrate that though she has been away for a bit, her artistry has continued to grow, thrive & develop and new peaks lie ahead of her.
To make matters worse, I'm sure I have heard her play "Demon" live and appreciated it at the time: a broody and magnificent anthem, it alone surely deserves a place on a future ‘Best of Taylor-Louise' and not to have been passed over in this magazine. It's a prime example of where the power & profundity of her lyrics are showcased in an arrangement which enhances them.
"Nothing to Prove" and "Sugar Coated Lies" are equally strong lyrically & certainly offer a route down which she might fruitfully explore: they are her biggest production and when you hear them, you put aside all preconceptions of Taylor-Louise the acoustic troubadour and switch to seeing her as a full on rock singer: it really does make great use of the power of her voice which easily rises above the louder & fuller arrangement.
Were she to build on this approach (which would be very progressive) then I'd certainly be very excited. This would mark her completely breaking free of any shackles of genre expectation. Of course hearing "History" and "She" played solo in acoustic mode offers two alternative speculations: will she record them as she did the ones I've just mentioned and so provide very different interpretations to what I heard, or did I experience something closer to her final intentions? That both worked in simple form isn't especially indicative: the best songs succeed in multiple arrangements.
I look forward to hearing her choice in the not too distant future. Taylor-Louise is back, but then she never went away as much as I thought she had….…
