A longstanding staple of Brisbane’s lively music scene, Sabrina Lawrie has ridden her fair share of ups and downs. Playing within a slew of bands, booking shows, promoting venues and finally releasing her own solo material, Lawrie has seen just about it all at this point.
Which is why Hush the Mountain, her debut album released in June, stands so strongly as an experiential record. We’re honestly not too sure how we missed this one when it popped, but thankfully an upcoming tour and a recent nomination for The Triffid’s 2017 Queensland Album of The Year have brought this killer album back into our consciousness.
Riding the swell of a lifetime’s experience and a transformative personal injury, Hush the Mountain is, if nothing else, a record grounded in the starkness of reality .
In early 2016, when Hush the Mountain was just a teething brainchild for Lawrie, she suffered a life changing injury. Falling from a balcony and breaking your back is not something you would wish on a soul anywhere, yet recovering from near death became a monumentally important part of herself.
With this in mind, the brooding, chaotic undertones to Hush the Mountain become swathed in a new, dark reverence. Pain, and its proven power for brining the edges of our souls to light, dot the LP and each of its dangerously glamorous cuts.
No Rules opens the album in more ways than one, serving as the primarily single released ahead of Hush the Mountain. Sardonic and with a touch of witchery, the track is a slow crescendo from rambling vocal lines into a dramatic climax.
It ends with some seriously tasty guitar interjections, a high-voltage footnote on a song which was already pushing the boundaries of safe listening.
Become is a standout, Lawrie’s explosive chorus work giving way to a much more restrained, creeping composition underpinned by tribal percussion.
Hush the Mountain is rock ‘n’ roll, but not without this creeping, serrated edge which carves its character into every arrangement the album contains. Lawrie’s undoubtedly effective compositions are undercut with this individuality, felt within the vocal sways in Little Red Houses or the frustrated columns of Headgames.
I guess you could call it her ‘sound’, as much as I loathe that term. But it stands especially true here, and knowing Lawrie’s history it’s impossible to ignore this darkened tint which permeates the entirety of the record.
Sabrina Lawrie’s debut LP Hush the Mountain may not boast a 20-song tracklist, yet it is vast. Vast in the emotional ground it covers, and the ambition with which it was crafted. And that’s not even mentioning the recovery Lawrie was faced with as she relinquished the LP’s subject matter.
It’s a stunning, worldly and experiential record out of a Brisbane mainstay. One that is certainly deserving of your attention.
Catch Sabrina Lawrie around town on her Southern Symmetry Tour:
Sat 21 Oct – Coochiemudlo Community Hall (QLD) – All Ages
Sat 21 Oct – The Flamin’ Galah (Brisbane, QLD) – supporting Ben Salter
Wed 25 Oct – The Tote (Melbourne, VIC)
Thurs, 26 Oct – The Taproom, Castlemaine Brewing Co (Castlemaine, VIC)
Fri 27 Oct – The Reverence Hotel Front Bar (Melbourne, VIC)
Sat 28 Oct – Off The Hip Records In Store (Melbourne, VIC) – All Ages
