She Makes War Live Review

14 Feb 2012

Reviews

Review | She Makes War

She Makes War @ The Green Park Tavern, Bath

One-woman army She Makes War has earned herself quite a reputation for being one of the hardest working independent musicians on the planet. Tonight, she brings her Telecaster and dolphin-embellished ukulele to the Green Park Tavern in Bath as support for fellow busy bees and collaborators The Hysterical Injury as they launch their (rather brilliant, might I add) debut album, Dead Wolf Situation.

She Makes War’s main weapon is her voice, which she uses with a great sense of skill and an acute awareness of its power throughout the performance. Lucid and melodic, yet seemingly effortless, her ethereal vocals form the basis for each song, complemented by the rhythmic strumming of her guitar and the shimmering sounds of her ukulele.

On ‘Let This Be’, her vocals brood almost snarlingly, enveloping sinisterly executed guitar chords with a dark intensity, whilst on new single ‘In This Boat’ – “my first love song!” – she begins softly and delicately before impressively belting out her vocals for the final chorus.

The use of live sampling to loop her vocals is particularly striking – adding warmth and layers to songs and creating a sound so immense that you could easily forget that there was only one woman on the stage. ‘Delete’, an a’capella song from forthcoming album Little Battles is stunning; before the audience, Laura builds up layer upon layer of her own vocals, spinning an intoxicating web of sounds that encircle the room. As the song nears its climax, she boldly descends from the stage – megaphone poised in her hands – to march and dance through the audience.

In a set that is just over half an hour, She Makes War successfully manages to demonstrate her versatility as an artist; she seamlessly floats between her dreamy, gloomy pop songs, switching from guitar to ukulele to vocals alone to reveal each facet of her musical identity. Between songs, she gives the audience snippets of her self-deprecating humour, endearing herself to us even further.

With the music industry often being described as a sea of inauthenticity, it is genuinely refreshing to see acts like She Makes War remaining vehemently independent and uncompromising; there is nothing contrived about this performance, only raw, creative energy. Not only is Laura Kidd a ridiculously talented individual, but she retains complete artistic control over her work and is clearly having a lot of fun in the process.

Emma Thompson