Lauren Harris – Calm Before The Storm
Trying to ignore that Lauren’s father is Steve Harris of Iron maiden fame is like trying to ignore a pissed off rhino in your front living room, who also has the remote control.
It will inevitably be difficult, as most people will make this connection and therefore have a number of preconceived notions already formed. What is refreshing here is that instead of taking a wild tangent for the sake of it, Lauren has chose to make her debut a solid rock n roll affair: admittedly not a million miles from her fathers output, but far enough that Lauren can be judged on her own merit.
In reality who cares if people have famous parents or relations? , sure they might be in the same circles; but ultimately it always falls on to the music.
Lauren’s created, with help from production supremeo Tommy McWilliams a modern Lita Ford echoing rock record; and all questions on Laurens ability are addressed with ‘From the bottom to the top’ as the vocals are draped with energy and power.
What’s maybe missing here is more spit & snarl, more aggression-Lauren can sing, so lets get the emphasis on feel, destined to be a single ‘Steal your fire’ just stays on the right side of that line whereas ‘Hurry up’ possibly oversteps it.
It potentially could be a mistake to tout it as ‘The Lauren Harris’ band as it instantly creates a wall between the musician’s and herself, the production also leans towards being extremely vocal heavy-which is fine, but it pushes Lauren into a territory and direction maybe not best suited for her.
The production is clean, polished and Laurens sound seems genetically built for success, but if left unchecked this could slip into that Avril Lavinge chasm and that really would be a shame as Lauren Harris could go onto some very special things.