For the past four years singer-songwriter Emma-Lee Moss has flooded the internet with a steady stream of anti-folk ditties, whether they've been official self-released EPs, free download only EPs, or the odd MP3 uploaded to her website, so it seems like a lifetime coming, but here finally, after picking up a full band and songwriting collective along the way, we have her debut album proper, and worth the wait it most definitley is.Ranking alongside Kimya Dawson, Martha Wainwright, and Diane Cluck as a more lighthearted Laura Marling, Emmy treats us to a mass of emotionally charged tales of young love and heartbreak. In title track First Love, we're told a story of a meeting and doomed romance between a girl, and a boy obsessed with Leonard Cohen's original 'Hallelujah', in 'MIA', the story of a couple in a car crash, the boy dies a gory death, with the girl remaining in the car, listening to a compilation, which includes a song by the artist in the track's title, and she reminisces, amid the blood splattered scene "I always liked this singer, I remember/ how you were the one who/ told me that her name/ was either Mia, or M.I.A".
An anti-folk luminary in the making Emmy The Great certainly is, as an introduction of her/their talent to a wider audience, this album is more than sufficient. Expect to hear me, and soon the rest of the world, wittering on about her for some time yet!