Lavender Diamond

Where most bands trog around the toilet circuit for years in the vain hope that a stray A&R man might walk past and hear their music emitting from an air conditioning vent, Becky Stark and her band have taken a different route to our attention. Lavender Diamond is the name of a character in an operetta written by Stark and represents “an emissary from the bird world – half-bird, half-human and an embodiment of the sound of love”. So far, so fey: but on their debut album, LA’s Lavender Diamond (the band, not the bird) have conjured a gorgeous array of swooning country and folk-tinged pop in time for the summer. Applying Stark’s operatic tones in tandem with cellos without sounding overbearingly twee is a feat in itself – marshalling 12 songs as sweet and affecting as these is something else.

Pat Long

8 out of 10