Album Review: Making Life Rhyme by Lulu

Arriving ten years after Lulu's impressive 2004 comeback Back on Track, 2015's Making Life Rhyme is every bit that record's equal and perhaps it's better in some ways. Working from a set of nearly all-original material for the first time ever -- there are two covers among these 11 songs, including Jimi Hendrix's "Angel" done in the style of Rod Stewart's covers -- Lulu sounds free and inspired by the retro-soul revivals of the past decade. In a sense, the success of Adele and Amy Winehouse has freed Lulu to indulge her love of old-fashioned girl group pop and hopping Tamla-Motown, but there's also a fair amount of bluesy grit here, surfacing even on the buoyant bounce of "Every Single Day.

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Fifty years into a career should be long enough to identify one’s strengths, and Lulu’s first album of new material in a decade – her first back on Decca, with whom she first came to prominence – certainly plays to them. The 11 mainly self-penned songs here showcase her still powerful voice, spread across a surprisingly wide range of genres. Heaven Help is beamed in from the 1950s; Every Single Day sounds like an upbeat Sheryl Crow; the irresistible Hypnotised takes the bassline from the Knack’s My Sharona on to the dancefloor.

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