Hearing Tender Prey for the first time, you could be forgiven for thinking: "Hmm, sounds a bit like early PJ Harvey. Or Anna Calvi." Yep, I'll give you that on the strength of this track. But there's more to Cardiff's Laura Byron to that. Sure, she makes "sleaze blues" a-plenty, but her 2015 debut album 'Organ Calzone' offers much more; "pocket melodies to dance, drink and wrestle to" as she puts it.
Her sound is very basic, often little more than electric guitar and voice. Some drums and keyboards pop by to help out every now and then, but this naked approach is what makes Tender Prey sound so different to everything else around at the moment. She's worked with Jane Weaver, who she recently toured with and shares a label with, and Sweet Baboo with whom she duets on his latest album.
My problem here was which track to give you. I like all of them even more with each play. It was nearly Velvetine, but I thought that was a little too dark an introduction. So instead, here's the gnarly album opener Bug Blood.
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