Lucas & King LUCAS & KING

Lucas & King
Lucas & King
Self-Release 

Moody, Sensual and Smoky Alt. Jazz-Noir Or Something Like That!

Now, here’s a funny thing! Last Tuesday I was planning to listen to an album by someone else called ‘Lucas’ and absent-mindedly  tapped ‘play’ on this one; and as I was expecting some ‘Good Ole Boy’ Country, my head nearly spun off it’s hinges when Bo Lucas’s  sensual and smoky vocals oozed out of the office speakers on the spooky Brunswick Place which opens this debut album.
Ye Gads! Who is this young lady??
As the next song, Maybe I Do, followed in a similar sensual, late night conversational path I had to hunt out the accompanying Press Release; and when I did I couldn’t believe that this young couple come from Southampton……not that there’s anything wrong with Southampton; but what kind of seedy nightlife begets music like this? Surely Lucas & King must inhabit the darker echelons of Soho (London and NYC!) to create such dark jazzy, Soulful or is it possibly Bluesy witchcraft….but musical witchcraft it most certainly is?
Even on a Tuesday afternoon songs like Crazy Heart and Moonshades made my pulse race and heart skip a beat; so goodness only knows what I would be like in a darkened nightclub as Bo prowls the stage caressing her microphone in a most phallic manner (or so I assume!) and Hayleigh strums her guitar as if the strings are made from Angels hair! It’s now over a week later and I’m still bemused by the wonderfully simple and almost hypnotic sound this duo create. Is it Jazz? Is it the Blues? It may even be a type of Country I’m yet to discover if the amazing I Only See Stars (When I Stand Up Too Fast) is anything to go by; as Hayleigh King effortlessly puts more Twang into her guitar than most of today’s Nashville Cats can ever hope to achieve in a lifetime! 
The songwriting is rather intense too; albeit dealing with the hum-drum aspects of life that are ever so important to the individual they are writing and singing about; especially so on Dancing to No Music and the punch to the heart that is Shop Girl! 
On an album that puts the ‘Noir’ into whatever category you finally settle on putting Lucas & King into, I’m torn between two bittersweet love songs as my Favourite Track here. Bo Lucas gives free reign to her lovely voice on The Heart is a Lonely Wanderer making it the type of song you turn to in the wee small hours of the morning; and you patently know you shouldn’t! 
The other, Crazy Heart finds Kayleigh making her guitar smoulder and shimmer as Bo takes us on a journey to the centre of her soul; and back again; so I’m probably going for that one……… but you will probably find something different that captures your own heart, and that’s fine too.
As I listen again this morning I find words like ‘enigmatic’, ‘whispering’,  ‘love lorn’ and ‘luxurious’ springing to mind; as well as Chris Isaak, Maria McKee (circa Show Me Heaven) but mostly Noosha Fox whom I was smitten with as a spotty teenager in the 1970’s!
Already winners of the prestigious Fender Undiscovered Act Of The Year, it’s hardly going to take anything for this remarkable and classy duo of young women becoming megastars around the world! 

Released November 23rd 2018 
https://www.lucasandking.com/

https://lucasandking.bandcamp.com/album/lucas-king