In a shotgun marriage of sweet and sour, this London-based quartet combines the goody-gumdrops prettiness of the Cocteau Twins (C.T. guitarist Robin Guthrie produced half these cuts) with the audio anarchy of Sonic Youth. You float along on wispy clouds of cotton-candy strumming and scarcely audible ghost vocals, and then smack face-first into brick walls of scrapes and feedback. Guitarists Emma Anderson and Miki Berenyi aren't impressive technicians by conventional reckoning, but why reckon conventionally when you can just bask in their lovely, fresh-smelling textures?

Title: Spooky
Author: Simon Reynolds
Rolling Stone, April 1992

For the past few years, British indie rock has been dominated by bands known as shoegazer (because they're shy onstage), purveying a style of music termed dream pop (because of its rapturous noise). While not a pioneer like My Bloody Valentine or A.R.Kane, Lush is one of the best bands from dream pop's second wave. Its noise is almost entirely guitar generated, but Lush isn't exactly a rock & roll experience. Instead of riffs, the effects-laden guitars exude a billowing haze that mingles with Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson's pallid harmonies. On "Nothing Natural," only the surging, faintly ominous bass line guides you through the blizzard of sound, while "Superblast!" is a giddy rush of iridescent textures. Lush also excels at gentler songs, like "Covert" and "Monochrome," that fill the mind's eye with halcyon imagery.

At times, the loveliness of it all gets wearying. At its worst, Lush can be criminally insipid, as on twee lullabies like "For Love" and "Untogether." Another problem is that Lush is too enigmatic for its own good. Berenyi's demurely forlorn vocals are just another pretty thread in the aural tapestry than an emotive force. When decipherable, the oblique lyrics hint at mild angst or blissful disorientation. You can find yourself longing for the group to smash through the lustrous sheen of its sound (which owes a lot to producer Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins) with some kind of explicit emotion. In Britain, Spooky saw the members of Lush transformed almost overnight from press darlings into pariahs; critics decreed that the dream popsters were too wispy and winsome to be relevant in the post-Nirvana order. While that's an overly harsh verdict for an album that offers much delight, it's probably true that Lush does need to open up and bleed. * * *

Title: Spooky
Author: David Browne
Entertainment Weekly, April 1992

Imagine being sucked into a huge wind tunnel as pulsating vibrations smother you--and having the experience prove very pleasant. Welcome to dream pop, the latest branch of British alternative rock. Dream pop could be called post-modern New Age, but there's a welcome difference. In this aural massage, the guitars are distorted and layered, the songs seamless drones, the voices buried in murk. It's the soundtrack of a generation that has been pummeled by too much media and too many dead-end social options, and would prefer to lose itself in massive pillows of sound.

Singer-guitarist Miki Berenyi of Lush is part of that crowd; "It's just a game/All just the same," she sighs on Spooky, the band's bracing second album. She sounds a little overwhelmed, and the music reflects her tone: spatial guitars and madrigal vocals combine for otherworldly, vacuum-packed sound--Valium with a kick. A-

Title: Split
Author: Chris Gill
Guitar Player, August 1994

Dream popsters Lush pump up the pop and downplay the dream on their third full-length outing. Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson's guitars chime, buzz, and drone like melodically tuned power tools and kitchen appliances, complementing their wispy vocals to generate a sound that lives up to the band's name. Berenyi and Anderson explore a variety of signal processed tones ranging from pulsating, chorused rhythm beds to percussive, flanged single-note lines, giving each song a distinct character with moods that shift from hypnotic modal modernism to energetic punk primitivism. A significant step beyond the monochromatic motifs of their earlier efforts.

Title: Split
Author: Paul Evans
Rolling Stone, September 1994

Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson's high, breathy vocals rise out of the edgy, fuzz-tone swirl of their guitars--it's a tension of tenderness and toughness that captures Lush's fascinating ambiguity. This London quartet, formed in 1988, writes spare, midtempo love songs for wary romantics; there's always a hint inside the sweetness, of trauma, loss, conflict. Lush's best material--"Light From a Dead Star," "Undertow," "Desire Lines"--is dreamlike, beautiful and disturbing. Producer Mike Hedges (the Cure) achieves a rougher sound than on Spooky (1992); with the gain in immediacy, Lush are even more haunting. * * * 1/2

Title: Split
Author: Michele Romero
Entertainment Weekly, July 1994

If Enya rocked, she could front this British slo-core band. Lead singer Miki Berenyi's lofty tones, with backups by Emma Anderson, collapse on top of a swell of muted guitar fuzz that shifts from tranquil to furious. Berenyi's confessions of pained relationships are difficult to decipher, but ears attached to headphones won't care much. B

Title: Lovelife
Author: Josef Woodard
Entertainment Weekly, March 8, 1996

Lush continue to carve out a personal path between girl-group cheekiness and tough-skinned attitude. For them, "love life" is not necessarily pretty; likewise, the music. Although '90s savvy, they're not ashamed to bow to '60s pop, as with the Phil Spectorish studio frippery on "I've Been Here Before," which is laden with both ear candy and a dour worldview. The beauty lies in the cracks. B+

On-line reviews of Lovelife:
The iZine
Consumable
Calgary's VOX Magazine
Rad Cyberzine
Rocknet
Twee Kitten

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