Reviewing Lady Denman’s Love Life Advice

I should start by acknowledging a potential conflict of interest…

One of the members of Lady Denman once gave me a skateboard.

It’s a bright pink penny board, the kind that’s awfully hard to stay on at first. Today I’ve been riding it around the suburbs listening to the band’s latest single, “Don’t Date A Poet” and, like my growing confidence on four wheels, it’s is the sound of Lady Denman at their most assured and playful yet.

There’s a moment right at the end of the song where the band stops (impressively) in unison and you can almost hear them sitting in silent anticipation for a second, looking at one another in disbelief at their own success.

And then they crack up. The lasting impression of the song is quite literally that of four friends laughing together, excited at the very idea of getting into a studio and making sounds.

It’s all true to a band finding their happy place, and being comfortable to just be with one another, no differently to how the song’s lyrics reflect knowing that distance and intimacy aren’t mutually exclusive.

“Come and stay with me, but don’t stay forever,” is one such line from the second verse. Musically, the violin feels homey, sitting over ukulele and a full rhythm section. The vocal harmonies that end each line in the verse are genuinely stirring and by themselves enough to make you come back for more.

“Don’t Date A Poet” is brimming with fun contradictions like: “You are something, everything, nothing, I need a holiday”, and “If our lives were a musical I wouldn’t buy tickets”. The latter relies on a familiarity with the subject matter that would only come from a) sitting through the musical in question or b) reading a review.

And if it takes reading a review to go and listen to Lady Denman, so be it. You should, because their sounds are those of a band with all the talent and good ideas in the world. If at all possible, take a moment out of your busy schedule to do so. Take your skateboard if you have to. It’ll all be worth it for the four carefree minutes Lady Denman have put to tape.

You should, as it were, buy tickets.

Lady Denman’s new single “Don’t Date A Poet” can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Google Play, iTunes, Bandcamp and Triple J Unearthed.