ALBUM REVIEW: Luvcat – ‘Vicious Delicious’

Luvcat represents the salve to every chronic ailment that’s plagued indie music since time immemorial. Generic; anonymous; boring—all are words that couldn’t be less applicable to Sophie Morgan’s sauced-up pop venture. And you can tell that it works, because it’s been this way from the start. Vicious Delicious is Morgan’s first longform release under the Luvcat moniker, but it also packages in every single she’s put out under that name. This was a project designed from the beginning to land exactly how it has right now.

But even then, it barely even seems fair to put Luvcat amongst the vast array of indie identikits slogging workmanlike at every corner of the UK. And yet, that’s the company that Morgan has been placed amongst, fortuitously making her seem even better before even a note of music has been played. Character feels imperative to Luvcat as an entity, already a flying start when at least 90% of the scene has none to speak of. And honestly, just a bit of that presence is enough. You don’t necessarily need the drawn-up backstory of Morgan running away to join the circus in Paris and proceeding to live out a pulpy romance novel. It helps, but you don’t need it.

What’s also great is how Vicious Delicious never treats itself as a gimmick. The character that Morgan plays is baked in rather than plastered on, thanks to how her portrayal of glamour comes with a hefty slug of grottiness and seediness in it. Her persona reads more as ‘‘70s social club performer’ than ‘showgirl’, with a telltale hint of stale lager and cigarette smoke in her aura. The closest thing to Golden Age Hollywood romance on Love & Money is absolutely an outlier; otherwise, you get independent Liverpool venues namechecked on Matador and Blushing, or on Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel, seasick horns, a cod-cabaret squonk, and Morgan giving her most wine-drunk vocal performance on the album.

Embracing the sleaze and subversion behind the bright lights undeniably brings out the most distinctive faces of Luvcat. It’s in a couple of different forms too—coquettish with frequently murderous intent on Lipstick and He’s My Man, or being sucked in by a strong dose of toxicity time and time again on Matador and the title track. There is still earnestness in play, too, which is what makes the vamping, verbose bridge of Blushing so euphoric when it lands its final chorus. And in the middle of both of those is something like Laurie, a piano-ballad embossed with gorgeous, regal horns, where Morgan asks of her homme fatal, “What if he, suddenly, gets run over before I get over myself?”. Even in its moments of utmost poise, the playfulness of Vicious Delicious is really what holds everything together.

It’s basically a prerequisite, when such a significant portion of the album is dedicated to vintage showmanship that, by nature, is quirkier and more kittenish in the modern musical lexicon. Even on the least gripping track Spider, there’s still plenty of allure in its sparseness and mournful strings, and the tiptoeing progression that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Tim Burton soundtrack. Across the board, Vicious Delicious’ songcraft really is immaculate, never feeling overcooked or underfed, and being far enough away from a mainstream ideal of ‘perfect’ to stand out. You can tell this is an independent pop release from the overall lack of varnish applied, even on Love & Money and Blushing that are half a hair’s breadth away from pure synthpop crystal.

That might be enough in some cases, for some artists. For such an immediately complete identity as Morgan’s, though, it’s a base, at best. That earlier descriptor ‘kittenish’ is apt for more than just the artist’s chosen name, as Bad Books serves as a backdoor audition for specifically Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman, albeit in a more noir context thanks to its horns and bottomless bass. It and Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel are Vicious Delicious at its most ostentatious and presentative, though its ideas still flow. The brittleness of Matador almost conjures itself being cranked out of a gramophone, with a neat bit of sonic diegesis as “The music is getting stranger” coaxes its madcap pieces into place. Later, eerie discord becomes the tipple of choice of He’s My Man and Emma Dilemma—strings are at the right weeping yet uncanny frequency, held by perfectly rounded bass, though not enough to prevent the latter from full-scale collapse by the end.

They’re just some isolated examples of the lengths that Vicious Delicious goes to to remain engaging all the way through. Very rarely does it not pay off; most times, it exceeds expectations by mountains. With every subsequent listen, as new details sparkle out and every single song becomes deeper entrenched in your brain, it’s hard to see Luvcat as anything other than a superstar. Not ‘in-the-making’; she’s already there. And you can take that as far as you like, too. It goes without saying that this cleans house in the indie sphere, but put it against the majority of pop stars—mainstream or otherwise—and Vicious Delicious would still hold its own. That’s the sort of performer we’re dealing with here, and it’s only a matter of time before the world recognises that.

For fans of: The Last Dinner Party, Wolf Alice, The Mysterines

‘Vicious Delicious’ by Luvcat is released on 31st October on AWAL.

Words by Luke Nuttall