Emmy the Great

Emma-Lee Moss has walked quite a walk since the days she was singing vox in the original line up of Lightspeed Champion alongside Florence Welch. For her second album, the Great one is seeking some healing downtime after her ex-fiance, an atheist, suddenly left her for the curch.

The tone is candle-lit and redemptive then, making it for a pleasantly magical early evening listen. Opener 'Dinosaur Sex' sets a melancholy tone for the record, drenched in Bond-esque sadness, choral delicacy and a supernatural-sounding slide guitar. Later, 'Creation' is a velvet-coated and melancholy soul number about the wonders of the universe, while 'Exit Night' rides muffled Hawaiian drums and shimmers with nocturnal expectation.

Emmy's voice has never before been matched with such cinematic production, and the result is an exotic record which seizes the day. - Artrocker

When Emma-Lee Moss, aka Emmy the Great, was writing her forthcoming second album, Virtue, the singer's fiance had a religious conversion and left her for the church, which has seemingly prompted her cheeky decision to tour in places of worship. Sheffield's historic cathedral provides an apposite backdrop for devastated songs containing understandable vitriol towards religion. However, playing here seems to have incurred the wrath of a higher power.

"Bryan," guitarist Euan Hinshelwood addresses the soundman. "I'm getting Radiohead coming through my guitar." It's real-life Spinal Tap – Moss suspects not God, but that the soundman is listening to Thom Yorke on the sly – and one of several lighter moments in an emotional rollercoaster of a gig.

Moss's bravery isn't confined to her choice of venue: she is one of the boldest young writers in pop today. Just three songs in, she delivers her debut's bombshell We Almost Had a Baby: "You didn't stop when I told you to stop," it begins, and appears to describe a date rape.

The Anglo-Chinese singer emerged from the London-based folkie community that spawned Marcus Mumford et al, but packs much more intensity. Meat Puppets and Pixies covers suggest the influence of grunge and hardcore, but her stark voice and bittersweet melodies sound more like Natalie Merchant fronting the Velvet Underground.

Her new songs are richer concoctions of lyrical dynamite. In Easter Parade, her relationship/future unravels over her refusal to believe: "There's no Arcadia, no Albion and no Jerusalem here." Trellick Tower is a funereally beautiful account of being abandoned for God.

Cheers ring around the cathedral, although it's hard not to suspect more almighty fury when she steps up to the mic and almost knocks herself out. - The Guardian

Emmy The Great’s second album arrives, against a stark backdrop of personal turmoil. That the Londoner remains in tremulous-yet-steely voice, is, of course, excellent news, as is her decision to begin the album with ‘Dinosaur Sex’, and thematically and melodically she’s on fearsome form: ‘Creation’ begins as Tori Amos’ ‘Happy Phantom’ before entering a military swell, ‘Sylvia’ sets its jangling judder to a frenetic synthetic pulse, while ‘North’ is haunted and anthemic in equal measure. The overall result is a curious cocktail of ‘Two Suns’ and ‘The First Days Of Spring’ that’s every bit as startling as that sounds.
- The Fly

A lot of growing up has happened to Hong Kong-born Emma-Lee Moss since her debut album two years ago. Moss' engagement ended shortly after she began writing the songs that became virtue, and where once there was a young woman struggling to convey post-teen angst, now there is genuine tragedy, self-realisation and triumph. Her musical palate has been expanded too as celestial choirs, reverb-drenched guitars and tinkling pianos draw in the background while she tempts to make sense of her unravelled relationship, and the church that stole away her fiance. A Woman, A Century of Sleep, Iris and Paper Forest (In The Afterglow of Rapture) all crackle with the intensity of an artist fearlessly facing down her demons, while Sylvia, a tribute to her lost aunt, incongruously pulses along on a motorbike beat. Virtue is a giant leap forward that puts her on a par with Laura Marling. - MOJO