Lux Lyall - A promising talent plays The Slaughtered Lamb

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Lux Lyall is just pure class!!!

Lux Lyall **** is a class of lady who dons blood red lips, Ray-Bans, a faux fur and six inch Jimmy Choo heels just to saunter down to the corner shop to purchase her cat a tin of Whiskas. After all, the only ‘man‘ a girl can ever truly trust is her cat, dog or reptile. Lux’s carefully crafted promo videos drip with the kind of glamour usually reserved for high profile artists who sold their soul to a global corporation for a sniff of success. 

The imagery Lux conjures boasts a nod to the glamour of 1940's Hollywood cinema, but tonight Lux is cast as Alfred Hitchcock’s blonde leading lady: misunderstood and always underestimated. This is a rare live performance of a wayward girl searching for paradise in a heartless city. Red light washes over the intimate basement room as Lux, former Sister Witch conspirator David Ryder-Prangley (Rachel Stamp) and guitarist Alexander Anthony (Callimico / Gold Baby), take their seats beneath the glowing pentagram (a clear homage to the 1981 film ‘An American Werewolf In London’). 

This evening is a stripped back affair, bookended by Lux effortlessly adding some edge to Lana Del Ray’s ‘Get Drunk’ and ‘Chemtrails over the Country Club’. Summoning a picturesque Californian sunset in her cut off denim shorts, cowboy boots and hat, Lux implores us to “trust no one” on ‘Wayward Girls and Wicked Women’. 

Stripped of the strings which bathe Lux’s 2020 debut album ‘Vamp’, ‘Kitty Collins’ seemingly muses on the infamous Rita Hayworth quote, “Basically, I am a good, gentle person, but I’m attracted to mean personalities”. Lux eloquently reads between the lines to produce a heartfelt refrain, “sick of falling for the wrong guys”.

Unlike Rita, who sank to alcoholism to counteract the psychological abuse of all those “wrong guys”, Lux appears far from her Sister Witch days. Reigned in is the nervous, tottering on the edge of the stage, cocktail in hand, as if staggering on a knife edge. Lux is in full control tonight: keeping on stage chit-chat to a minimum and maintaining an air of mystique.

Throughout, David’s acoustic and Alex’s electric guitar compliment Lux’s vocals perfectly. Neither guitarist competing for attention, nor allowing each other to overwhelm Lux’s poetry turned into whispered song. The boys turn in some dreamy vocal harmonies too - particularly on new songs, ‘Baby, Don’t Worry’, ‘Draw Blood’ and ‘Branded’. 

A short but ever so sweet eight song, forty minute set ... which sadly omits ‘Switchblade Baby’, ‘Teeth’ and Lux’s turned inside out, filthy cover of The Stooges’ ‘Dirt’. The captivated, all seated audience could happily have enjoyed a far longer performance had the Werewolves of the Slaughtered Lamb not been snapping at our heels.

Review by Mandy Bang and Photo's by Mark Dans L'Espace

Lux Lyall - Setlist
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Wayward Girls
Kitty Collins
Baby don't Worry
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Murder, Murder
Draw Blood
Branded
Get Drunk
Chemtrails

Check Out! the Video for 'Baby is a Vamp' Below...