Laurence Lawlor - There's No Sound In Outer Space

Laurence Lawlor

​There's No Sound In Outer Space
self-released; 2015

3.1 out of 5

By Ted Rogen
​

Laurence Lawlor is a bedroom-recording artist from Montreal who recently his first album entitled There's No Sound In Outer Space. He experiments with dissonance, which I was impressed by but doesn’t always come out ahead. The songs are largely hit and miss but even for the open minded some of the songs are hard to fully appreciate.

The songs sometimes get off time; dissonance is a constant factor but the most ambivalence I had was towards his unconventional singing. I don't think there is any way you can call Lawlor a classically good singer. He often sounds like he barely has the strength to utter out the lyrics and is off-key at least a couple times per song. I think people will be torn between loving it or hating it. The one thing that Lawlor will need to work on regardless is pronouncing his words so we can understand the lyrics. Some of this is due to the production where he pours too much reverb on his vocals without pulling out the frequencies, which creates mud and some of it has to do with his delivery.

Lawlor starts with a highlight entitled “Sad Truth.” The best thing about the song is the juxtaposition between what sounds like white noise radio transmissions and the strumming of his guitar. That being said his vocals are too low in the mix and aren't clear enough to be the focal point of the song. 

“Au Revoir” is a melancholy, pretty song that showcases strong songwriting with extremely dismal lyrics. He sings, “Waiting for something Au revoir moving on Gonna go and see the boss Manning up soon enough Should have left me where I was Crying in my bedroom.”

“I Know Too Well” and “No Matter What I Do” don’t fare as well for a number of reasons. Namely the recording quality, the extreme dissonance and the fact the songs don’t always stay in time. As the album progresses Lawlor shows some creativity but the songs for better or for worse sound lethargic and as if they could fall apart. 

It’s obvious that Lawlor has some good ideas but needs to work on his implementation. If he hopes to be competitive with successful acts he will have to improve his singing and eventually up the ante on the recordings. Hopefully, Lawlor can one day look back on his first release as the humble beginning from which he formed a loose foundation.

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