Spooky by Lush is their first studio album released all the way back in January of 1992. It is considered to be a part of the dream pop, shoegaze, and ethereal wave genres. The album was produced by Robin Guthrie, who was the former guitarist for the Cocteau Twins. It is also important to note that Lush seemed to have changed to a more power-pop centric style after their release of Split, which has its own pros and cons. Anything they released 1996 and after, seems to sound very different from what they started with, minus remasters.
Luckily Lush has seemed to do a good job on what each member of the band actually did and when certain people were replaced, probably thanks to 4AD being their publisher. Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson were the founders of the band and also both did vocals alongside songwriting. Meriel Barham was recruited to play guitar. Steve Rippon was the original guitarist but left during the recording of this album, his replacement was Phillip King who played for Felt before this. Altogether, with the production of Robin Guthrie, were able to create a sound very similar to that of the Cocteau Twins’ but with real lyrics instead of made up words.
The actual sound of the music is very ethereal, it definitely has many effects put on to everything. Just like every song ever it seems like the bass gets nothing, I wish I could hear bass without having to press my earbud more into my ear but that’s just a problem I have with all music. My favorite track by far is “Fantasy” because the main vocals seem to be a bit higher, the vocals also sound more free if that makes any sense but I think that just comes from it sounding happier. “Nothing Natural” is a highlight with the song feeling as if it is going around in a spiral later on in it, the percussion also works really well with everything to make this song stand out from the rest of the songs. “Monochrome” seems to work a little differently being a little slower with much more reverb and the synthesizer sounding more like a piano than the rest of the tracks, it also at points turns the ethereal sound it is known for to the max. There are more highlights but those are the ones I think should’ve been noted.
While Lush did great work in their later albums, I still prefer their older music because it seems hard to find music similar to it; of course I could listen to the Cocteau Twins but I think they should be explored first because Lush sounds like a natural continuation. I would give Spooky a solid 4.1/5 because of my preference for their second studio album, Split, which I feel is more memorable overall and fuses their old and new sounds, like a transition album. I would recommend this album to anyone who likes music with lower energy, especially if music is something you would use as background noise, or if you like very atmospheric music. The only thing that holds this album back in my opinion is the lack of memorable lyrics, which if that is something you are into, I would definitely recommend Topolino, which makes the vocals much clearer. Overall, Spooky isn’t the most special off of Lush’s discography but stands out in its own ways, which makes it a pretty cool thing.
