Having already raved about Emily's latest pop masterpiece "Do You Wanna Go Out?", it seems only right to take a look at "Paint The Town Red" the EP from which it comes. Production duties are once again handled by Matt ( Honey Ryder ) Bishop with additional knob twiddling on "Front Porch" being covered by Tim Prottey-Jones reinforcing the EP's superior pop music credentials.
We use the word "superior" advisedly as both the production, writing and performing are just that little bit better than the average pop song.
The EP opens with "Do You Wanna Go Out" and from Emily's opening cheeky chuckle, things get off to a great start with those swathes of guitars, the pulsating drum beat and that glorious upbeat chorus.
"An Unwilling Heart" is a complex little song portraying a set of emotions you rarely get in a song, where one side of a relationship is unaware of the signals that they are sending out, leaving the other a little confused and in a state of turmoil, at least for a while.
Opening to an array of guitar sounds, the feelings felt are immediately laid out
"Sometimes when you look at me i can barely breathe like a thousand knives ripping straight right through my lungs"
The state of confusion is perfectly laid out in the chorus, along with the realisation that this relationship could never be, which is quite a big decision to reach.
"Why did you talk to me for hours standing out in the cold when you could just go? but you don't
Why am I lost without that feeling, that maybe we could have been but we're not
I realised there's no point in trying this hard - cos i know that you can't steal an unwilling heart"
Of course such a decision was not reached easily and Emily perfectly makes clear just how much inner torment was felt
"I came so close to letting you know but i didn't cos this weight in my chest was pulling me down"
There's a well handled mix of piano and violin that really add to the pathos of the situation and the way that Emily handles the vocals on the final chorus is superb as the instrumentation drops away and her vocal has an incredibly vulnerable hurt quality to it before soaring on the final line of acceptance.
There's a change with the piano ballad "If I Live To 100" which is a clever twist on a theme as we find Emily looking forward to looking back on her life and hoping that it has been lived to the full that
"I hope i don't have regrets and that my life is one hell of a story"
It is all summed up in a sumptuous chorus delivered with a delicious vocal
"I want "a lifetime of memories that I can take with me wherever I go
Like strolling on a moonlit shore or flying over Niagara falls
Hear you telling me that I'm yours, I'm saving all these times for evermore"
It makes a perfect centre piece for the EP, almost understated in its beauty.
"Front Porch" sees a return to the guitar led sound, and finds Emily pondering whether she and her partner did enough to save their relationship. It's an interesting take on things - can a relationship really ever recover form a break up to that degree and how would one react to Emily arriving on your doorstep to remonstrate with you
"I should be standing right on your Front Porch telling you, you made a mistake" a line she later reverses to apply to him.
As Emily later ponders
"If only it was as easy as i've seen in the movies!"
"That Girl" is the perfect way to end the EP, as it sets out Emily's vision of who she wants to be going forward. In some ways a companion piece to "If I Live To Be 100" albeit looking from the other end of the telescope at days to come rather than days past. Once again it is confidently guitar driven in an almost Tom Petty like direction at times
There's a certain frustration driving this decision
"I can't keep going round in circles" however it seems to be driven by one of those life changing decisions, a new job, leaving home, going to University where you have the chance to redefine who you are going to be. It drives some interesting decisions like
"I need to make a bigger noise - stand out and proclaim"
"Cos life's short, and I don't want to waste it standing on the sidelines when I could be in the spotlight"
it is strange as these are would seem to be the words of someone who believes they are underachieving and yet this whole EP would seem to be a testament to someone who is very much heading in the right direction, who comes at songs from a slightly different angle to others, someone that will stand out from the pack. Her worst crime would seem to be impatience.
In a refreshing change "Paint The Town Red" is only initially available in the physical format - and it is well worth heading over to
https://www.musicglue.com/emilylockettmusic/shop to grab a copy while you can.