On paper it’s hard to see why Lucy Rose should be anything out of the ordinary. Until now, her greatest claim to fame was an occasional gig as backing singer to Bombay Bicycle Club and the fact that she sells tea and jam at her gigs. Musically she certainly doesn’t attempt anything new or dangerous – a posh girl from Warwickshire, with her reedy, yearning voice and tentatively strummed guitar, the obvious temptation is to dismiss her as another Laura Marling mini-me (there have been a few).
But your cynicism wilts the moment you slap on Like I Used To, a record that revisits several familiar nu-folk tropes – but with an urgency and honesty that can blindside you if you weren’t expecting it. On ‘Shiver’ she picks through the ashes of a dead relationship, her voice at times sinking to a barely-there coo. ‘The Middle Of The Bed’ is sweet and witty, with a sneakily persuasive hook; she moans and mooches her way through ‘Night Bus’, managing to make early twentysomething heartache feel like the most painful thing a person could experience. Extraordinary and completely unexpected.