Little Boots – aka Victoria Hesketh – landed in 2009 with her incredibly catchy single, New in Town, and equally brilliant album, Hands. It’s been a long wait for her follow-up; she first teased us in 2011 with Shake and it’s taken almost two years to finish the album since then. So is it worth the wait?
The record starts off slow-paced with lush single, Motorway, a lovely tale of making an escape. This is followed by awesome, nineties-esque Confusion where she rips into a lover that’s messing her around. “You’re playing games; do you think that you could break my heart again?” she questions them. Elsewhere, Strangers proves she can blend the two things she sings about the most – love and clubbing – as she uses the metaphor of dancing to represent the drifting apart of a relationship.
On the more upbeat side, singles Every Night I Say a Prayer and Broken Record are both highlights, and Shake is undoubtedly the best song here; a stomping dancefloor filler that make you want to move (which is what it’s about, so that’s good really). It’s a shame last year’s single Headphones doesn’t make an appearance though.
Although the first half of the album is incredibly solid, it does trail off a bit towards the end, not grabbing the listener as much. The down-tempo Satellite is a great ending though. Just like on Hands, here Hesketh proves she can do lush slow tunes just as well as upbeat numbers. Yet she’s not repeating herself here; the formula may be similar, but the end result is unique as she draws influences from new places – most notably, the seventies disco era.
Overall, Little Boots’ sophomore effort is an accomplished record that will be on repeat for most of summer for anyone that’s a fan of dancefloor fillers and dreamy pop. It’s safe to say the wait was most definitely worth it.
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