Music > Album Reviews

Luke White // Outside In

28/06/12

Release Date: June 18th 2012

Luke White – Outside In (Strongwire Records) As soon as I put this on, I just knew that I was going to like it, but I was wrong - I actually love it, as the man with the high waist trousers would say.

A mysteriously mystical ‘Intro’ track sets you instantly on a path into the unknown, but it certainly takes you down the right path as the opening bars of ‘Black Market Red Roses’ start up. It is a tale about the lengths that we will go to when we fall deeply in love with someone and in the process it conjures up images of a young man driving deep into the night, searching in vain for the said ‘Black Market Red Roses’, all for the girl that he is so in love with. This, the opening track certainly sets the tone for this quite brilliant debut album; I cannot get this track out of my head.

Luke White is a singer songwriter, musician and self-producer with a not dissimilar vocal style to that of Joel Potts (Athlete) and Ed Sheeran; he can crank it up and play it down low, with the same vocal and lyrical intensity throughout each track, whatever the pace of the song.

‘Stupid Kind of Love’ is very Neil Finn-esque (Crowded House) with its dripping beautiful, delectable vocal and delicate layers of piano culminating in its dramatic crying crescendo of a chorus; such raw emotion is belted out as White wails, “What were we thinking of”, it has such deep heart wrenching regret and guilt pouring out from being with someone that he really shouldn’t be with. You can feel the very raw passionate strains in the tones of his voice; it is a very engaging drama of a song - Finn, Ron Sexsmith and Guy Garvey (Elbow), would salute such a talent. Wow, what a song indeed.

Deeply emotional and thoroughly captivating, it is quite simply an excellent piece of work, a really stunning and faultless debut; there is not a single duff track on the album at all. ‘Outside In’ has a real air of positivity running through its entire eleven tracks, such a great vibe, such an intense atmosphere, from ‘Made of Love’, ‘She’s a Dancer’ through to ‘Maybe She is Magic’.  

Get a little closer for there is a great new British talent walking our streets, make sure that you embrace him and just remember where you heard of Luke White first.

Beware, master craftsman at work.

Steve Plunkett 9/10