A fresh-faced 22, Lauren Pritchard’s life to date has proven as colourful as the contents of a youngster’s crayon box. The Tennessee-bred songstress upped sticks as a teen to seek her fortune in Los Angeles. Along the way she ended up a house guest of Lisa Marie Presley – the mother of her friend Riley Keogh – and enjoyed a stint in the successful musical Spring Awakening. Later, she ditched acting, relocated to London and hooked up with hit-making songwriter Eg White.
The debut album Wasted In Jackson is almost as dramatic as Pritchard’s life-story. The sound borrows evenly from roots, pop and soul music, the opener ‘Stuck’ following the path a young Ray Charles trod on pioneering album Modern Sounds In Country and Western. Elsewhere, an urban flavour permeates ‘Painkillers’ and ‘I Hope It’s You’ provides a blast of full-on pop. The sweet sorrow of ‘No Way’ suggests Devon Sproule, whilst ‘Going Home’ offers the sort of keys-driven theatrics that conjure an image of Tori Amos rocking out at her piano-stool.
At times, notably ‘Try A Little Harder’, it all gets a little melodramatic – the girl clearly still has some Broadway blood in her veins – but, such is the quality of the music, I’m inclined to forgive her. The title track meanwhile tells of escaping the confines of small town life for all the opportunity and adventure that the big smoke has to offer. Wasted In Jackson suggests that Lauren Pritchard’s adventures have only just begun.
KEY TRACK: ‘NO WAY’