Lady Lamb - Tender Warriors Club EP

Upon his rediscovery in the early 60s, Son House cheerfully exclaimed that hadn't touched a guitar in 20 years. The two young guys who found him had to reteach him to play in the style they'd learnt from him in the first place. On The Complete 1965 Sessions, he made multiple mistakes and lacked the deft touch he had 30 years earlier. What he did have, besides his perfectly preserved voice, was a renewed passion for the music, which he channeled every time his fingers touched the strings.

Technical ability is not the point of that analogy - Spaltro has no lack - but her singing and playing are similarly resonant. The entirety of Tender Warriors Club is Spaltro alone and acoustic, with extra layers of vocals the only overdubs. In this way it recalls her early lo-fi recordings, and it's something I didn't know I needed after she showed what she could do with a full band on her first studio album Ripely Pine (2013) and its equally strong follow-up After (2015). Tender Warriors Club seamlessly fuses the intimacy of that early stage of her career with the improved songwriting chops of her more polished recent work. The EP relies little on effects, but its two best songs use them pointedly: "Heaven Bent" leaves space at the end of phrases for the reverb to perceptibly decay, and later adds delay for a more pronounced effect; "We Are No One Else" makes further use of reverb, allowing multi-tracked vocals to build to a near-cacophony before dying out suddenly.

Tender Warriors Club is no mere stop-gap or house clearing exercise, but a cohesive and fully realised release, and another notch in the belt of an already accomplished young songwriter.

Related:

Lady Lamb - After

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper - Ripely Pine