Restless –  Natalie Lucassian (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

The art of making great pop music is the ability to produce something that is all things to all people but which still seems cultish and cool, edgy and underground. You want it to sell but you don’t want to sell out, success with integrity. How do you even do that? If I knew that I’d be rich, but I suspect that Natalie Lucassian has a better insight into such things than most, just listen to Restless.

Yes, it is pop and all that implies, accessible, infectious and easily marketable but it is subtler and clever than anything that such a three letter word or a simple generic label could even begin to encapsulate. For restless is also soulful and slick, it oozes with indie cool and it uses some rock muscle to get it to its final destination.

Pop music is always evolving, not always for the better, but Natalie Lucassian is a great example of an artist blazing new sonic trails, blending them with some rootsy spice and soulful resonance and dragging the genre kicking and screaming into a more mature, more exciting and more imaginative place.