Nerve Up, the debut album from Manchester’s LoneLady, AKA Julie Campbell, is a contrary beast. It was recorded over a four week period in the straight-out-of-central-casting setting of one of her native city’s dilapidated mills. Lyrically, it tends to stick to the “grim up North script”, with talk of fear, ghosts and solitude in the air. This lends proceedings an anxious, sometimes paranoid atmosphere, not least in the “grief shapes” of ‘Intuition’. However, despite this, and the circumstances of its birth, the album repeatedly manages to confound expectations.
For a start, there are Campbell’s vocals. Rather incongruously, this particular Mancunian candidate sounds not unlike The B-52’s lynchpin ( and former R.E.M. collaborator) Kate Pierson. R.E.M are, by Campbell’s own admission, a defining influence. Certainly there’s a dollop of the Americans’ lyrical jangle in ‘Immaterial’ and ‘Have No Past’. Initially, though, with the opening ‘If Not Now’, the album exhibits the quirk-pop appeal of Sweden’s Jenny Wilson. However, for all these far-flung inspirations, we shouldn’t assume Campbell is ignorant of her hometown’s musical heritage. The crisp guitars are often reminiscent of Buzzcocks and, at their most dextrous, The Durutti Column.
Elsewhere, ‘Marble’ suggests a more introspective New Young Pony Club. There are occasional hints too of The Gossip. The multitude of influences that Nerve Up plays with gives some idea of how skilfully Campbell has synthesised musical styles and eras. That she’s been signed to Warp Records – natural home to wayward musical genius – is perhaps the only predictable thing about this excitingly capricious talent.