Washington - I Believe You, Liar

Washington
I Believe You, Liar

****

I Believe You, Liar has been gestating in the brain of Megan Washington for a while now.  Her three EPs over the last eighteen months have seen the former Brisvegan dabbling with various blendings of jazz, folk and pop, with mixed success but always with a quirky twist unmistakably her own. With her LP debut, her patience in establishing herself has paid dividends – it’s not just a collection of the most fully formed examples of a young songwriter’s craft, but an immensely enjoyable pop confection with a kick in the aftertaste.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is how musically upbeat so much of the material is; the extent to which you’ll go for a song like ‘Rich Kids’ depends entirely on how open you are to throwing yourself around the kitchen like a lunatic. It’s immaculately produced, radio-ready pop (congrats are in order for studio mastermind John Castle), tempered by the vicious flavour that is Meg’s fingerprint – lines like “I wonder how you ever made it / Holy shit, you sure can turn it on” (‘Sunday Best’) are delivered with a butter-wouldn’t-melt sort of smile.

Although her voice effortlessly carries the laughing challenge and knowing twinkle required by the songs, she’s just as capable of tenderness, wringing hard-earned eloquence from a line like “maybe people in love are all on the same side when they fight” (‘Lover / Soldier’). At no point is Washington anything less than utterly convincing; the searching self-interrogation of ‘How To Tame Lions’ for instance draws its power from the chastened understanding that can only come from having been there. And that’s a fact true of the album as a whole.

I Believe You, Liar is a strident first effort which promises even better things to come.


First published in The Brag, Iss. 374, August 9th 2010