Ava Renn Lights The Fuse With Lightning Child

Ava Renn bursts onto the scene with Lightning Child like someone is kicking open a door that was never intended to be closed in the first place. The single and videos feel restless, loud, and alive, much like the pulse of an artist who is starting to trust her instincts, instincts she has honed since childhood. This is rock music with grit beneath its nails.

Not at all production-ready in their production values, the music grew in the West Texas desert, and you can tell by the silences between the sounds. The guitars are scratchy and thunderous, the drums drive hard, and Ava’s singing is front and center, fractured in spots, unwavering in others, but always legitimate. There’s an element that pays homage to PJ Harvey’s early albums in spots and an underlying intensity from the 90s punk revival set to slower laments that temporarily let the emotion sink in. Consider it the difference between horror films like Natural Born Killers or early Sofia Coppola in which mood trumps all else.

What’s particularly noticeable is the production decision not to smooth out anything. Everything is left bare. These songs are left to speak for themselves, and they do. This is music that will appeal to anyone who likes artists such as Courtney Barnett, or Hole, or possibly even St. Vincent from her earlier work.

Ava Renn
Lightning Child is not a consoling album. It’s an album of reclaimed space, noise, and electricity that gets to run wherever it pleases. Ava Renn appears to be ready to continue pushing, and it’s important to listen before the sparks are lit in something bigger.