It is what is it, it is what it is, but I kinda loved Viva Brother, even got them on the phone with the Phoenix when “Darling Buds of May” hit the scene a few years ago. So I’m excited to host Lee Newell’s new band Lovelife live at the pill boston tomorrow night at Great Scott. Check out the “Your New Beloved” music video, premiered on MTV Hive, and then promo from the pill boston dot com after the jump.
LOVELIFE
lee from viva brother + ally from mirrors reintroduce a smooth electronic pop vision
Lee Newell is a pop phenom. After clutching the UK Indie world by the popped-collar throat a few years ago with Britpop revivalists Viva Brother, the Slough-to-Brooklyn vocalist and songwriter has resurfaced with the smooth synth-pop sounds of LOVELIFE, which makes it’s Boston debut with a love gig at the pill this Friday.
Newell apparently has left loud bombast of grit-pop behind in London, and now the New Yorker teams with with Ally Young of Mirrors for LOVELIFE electronic r&b leanings of LOVELIFE. Recent EPs El Regresso and the Fourth Floor — both available for free download at the LOVELIFE homepage — have reintroduced Newell to the world, but his keen sense of melody and smart saccharine pop are still well intact. Songs like “Your New Beloved” (check out the music video above) and “She Makes It Look So Easy” are sultry synthpop Jams with a capital J, a city-scraped soundtrack of back-alley afterparties and Sunday morning hangovers. It’s a natural evolution, and LOVELIFE now finds Newell comfortable in his new skin.
“The fact is, if I was successful from those Brother songs I would be unhappy,” Newell told the Guardian last year after their split. “But I’m here now and I’m not successful, but I am happy. I don’t strive to be the biggest band in the world any more. I just strive to write, be with my best friends as much as I can, and if music will one day pay for that, that would be amazing.” But he cautions: “When everyone tells you you’re the next best thing, you go one of two ways. You either start believing it or you fight it. And I went with it.”
In a somewhat coincidental twist, this is the second straight week the pill’s theme involves artists sued over their names: last week was our hugely successful Suede Nite, which this week’s party with LOVELIFE brings to mind Newell changing his former band’s name from Brother to Viva Brother a few years ago after an Australian band cried foul. I guess that’s better than a jazz singer.
In any event, see you Friday: pill resident DJs Ken and Michael V spin the modern indie dance party before and after the band. Look sharp xx the pill
