Laura Jane Grace
Stay Alive
Release Date: Oct 1, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Polyvinyl
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Album Review: Stay Alive by Laura Jane Grace
Very Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
Immediately before the release of Against Me!'s earnest 'Transgender Dysphoria Blues' in 2014, Laura Jane Grace led the charge on the stripped-back 'True Trans' EP. Delivered through an acoustic guitar, it presented her crucial words like never before. This powerful urgency underpinned the full band effort months later, and subsequent releases as both a member of Against Me! and The Devouring Mothers. 'Stay Alive' sees her return to that singular nature, her songwriting pushed front and centre in place of driving riffs and Americana tinged rock.
Based on rating 7
The lockdown album is set to be a major trope over the next 18 months, as musicians, songwriters, and producers allow their quarantined status to become the focal point of their creativity. In this respect Laura Jane Grace is an early adopter - with the pandemic shattering her 2020 plans, the one-time Against Me! vocalist found that her band was locked down in various locations across North America. Undeterred, she decided to book four days in Steve Albini's Electric Audio studios, crafting a solo album that is marked by urgency in the process.
Based on rating 6.8/10
Is there a producer better cut out for the pandemic than Steve Albini? The famously hands-off engineer has been keeping a safe distance from bands in his studio since well before the CDC was advising it, and the coronavirus hasn't changed his process much. As Laura Jane Grace tells it, masks aside, the recording sessions for her first solo album Stay Alive weren't all that different from the usual Albini productions: no computers, no overdubs, no wasted time or niceties. They tracked the album in just two days.
'Stay Alive'
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