London Grammar is the name on everybody’s lips at the moment. Their own brand of captivating art rock is wowing audience everywhere. Championed by DJs like Greg James (current single ‘Strong‘ was his record of the week) as well as Radio 1 in general (‘Strong’ is now on playlist A) the band have made fans in all the right places. With their stunning debut album If You Wait out next week, London Grammar have burst onto the music scene and aren’t looking to go anywhere.
The band formed whilst they were studying at Nottingham University in 2009, when vocalist Hannah Reid and guitarist Dan Rothman met in their university halls. They later drafted in multi-instrumentalist Dot Major, and that’s how the band stands today. They started playing casual gigs, but it wasn’t until December 2012 that they posted their first track online. This was the gorgeous ‘Hey Now’, and was what launched the band into the mainstream. Since then they’ve released several singles, an EP (Metal & Dust) and have an album on the way. For 10 months, that’s pretty good going.
Their music is gorgeous. Hannah Reid’s vocals soar over the perfect production of synthesisers and jittering guitars, and her brooding tone makes it feel like she’s singing every word directly to you. Each of their tracks is compositionally interesting, with substantial and developed chord progressions and structures. The music is well thought out; it’s not like much of the music around today where you feel like the artist has just picked up a guitar and started singing the first random words that come into their mind. They’ve thought about their music, and it shows. And with all this amazing-ness going on musically, you’d think that maybe the band would fall down lyrically? But no, they’ve got that too, with some truly heartfelt and, frankly, poetic lyrics, the band have really got it all going for them.
With a record tipped for a mercury nomination (before it’s even released) and their name being the biggest buzzword in the industry, London Grammar are most definitely ones to watch. Young, talented and determined, they’ve got quite the journey ahead of them!
London Grammar’s debut album If You Wait is out on the 9th of September.
