Lola Kirke's debut record is a breathy, hazy trip through country-tinged Americana. The kind of thing you might hear playing in drowsy bars deep in swamp country.
In its strongest moments, Heart Head West is pleasingly haunting, channelling a Gothic feeling of romanticised doom or a Lynchian strangeness. When ittwists the conventions of the genre to its smoky vision.
It's when it doesn't, when it adheres to the rules rather than perverting them, that the album falters. Turn Away Your Heart and Bad News, for example, are straight up country, fiddles and all, and less interesting because of it.
However, Supposed To, a standard issue barn-stomper, is elevated to one of the album's highlights thanks to Kirke's swooning delivery, sassy lyrics and the energised performance of her band.
The winkingly audacious Born to Die is another highlight. The song riffs on the similarly titled Springsteen classic and matches it with the chord progression from Twin Peaks theme Falling. Kirke's dramatic performance on Simon Says, which pits her breathy and emotive vocals against a squalling feedback-drenched guitar, is another easy standout.
Although it's the weirder moments that work best here, Kirke does get too weird with the title track. This spoken word, pitch-shifted monologue is a dark trip, man. But it flows into the light and breezy, jazz-flute led escape of Out Yonder beautifully. It's incredibly cinematic, which is somewhat fitting for the multi-talented Kirke, whose day job is as an actor on Mozart in the Jungle.
It's moments like these, where Kirke exploits the unsettling sounds and vibe of Americana, that provide the more unique and interesting parts of Heart Head West. You can't help but wish she'd pushed it a little further throughout.
From here it's hard to predict whether she'll travel down that strange lost highway or if the genre's roots, which have obviously captured her heart, will win out and steer her down a more conventional route. I really hope the weirdness wins.
