Alice Gold
Seven Rainbows
Release Date: Jul 12, 2011
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Singer/Songwriter
Record label: Polydor
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Album Review: Seven Rainbows by Alice Gold
Very Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Alice Gold's debut, recorded over three weeks and produced by Dan Carey (Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip) is a pleasing mixed bag. Opener "Seasons Change" has a semi-psychedelic feel and crystal-clear vocals and the travelogue "Runaway Love" a Lily Allen lilt; single "Cry Cry Cry" features off-kilter urban beats and a strangely familiar hook in the chorus that will stick in the brain. Elsewhere, there are darker textures to be savoured, and the record gets better as it goes along – I really like the bluesy, wayward "Conversations of Love".
Based on rating 6/10
Armed with a free-spirited nomadic back-story (including a six-month U.S. road trip in a Winnebago won during a poker game and a spell teaching English in a Luxembourg castle) and a rough-around-the-edges voice inspired by musical idol Janis Joplin, guitar-wielding twenty-something Alice Gold may be a child of the '80s, but her debut album, Seven Rainbows, is most definitely a byproduct of the '70s. Eschewing the retro-soul sound of her contemporaries, its 11 tracks produced by Dan Carey (Franz Ferdinand, Lily Allen) instead hark back to the classic blues-rock of Led Zeppelin ("Orbiter"), the psychedelic soul of Jimi Hendrix ("Conversations of Love"), and the acid folk of Jefferson Airplane ("Sadness Is Coming").
Based on rating 3/5
Details of English newcomer Alice Gold's past are sparse; she seems to have simply materialised, fully-formed, at age 28, with an album of pop-rock she says was modelled on Janis Joplin. While Joplin's hard-living raunchiness surfaces in a couple of songs, notably on the come-hither blues-rocker Conversations of Love, Seven Rainbows is more accurately defined by its velvety heart, which places her closer to Françoise Hardy and Melanie. It's not all reverb and double-tracked vocals, though; there's a clear funk influence in the loping basslines here.
Opinion: Very Good
An album that transcends any accepted conventions for female singer-songwriters. Al Fox 2011 As 28-year-old Londoner Alice Gold unveils her debut album, she finds herself lumped with two tags: the obligatory ‘female singer-songwriter’, and the textbook ‘new face’. And while there’s little to contest the former, the tales of loss, guts and adventure she imparts prove she’s no wet-behind-the-ears newcomer.
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