LISTEN: Charley Stone – ‘Better With You’

The PR for the latest Charley Stone single describes her as a ‘scene queen’. Hype, you may well initially think, but Charley’s been more than prolific for a long while. Having played with the likes of Salad, Charley currently plays guitar on tour with both Sleeper and Desperate Journalist. Her tribute band work is almost a Wikipedia page in itself: The Fallen Women (an all-female Fall karaoke band), ABBA Stripes (ABBA played by a White siblings-esque duo), Hive Fives (part of The Hives franchising of their own band) and The Dumb Blondes (a Dolly Parton tribute), to name just a few. Now, after so long playing others’ parts, Charley Stone is prepping to release her debut solo album, with musical support from her group, The Actual Band.

Before the album is released next month, Charley brings us its second single – ‘Better With You‘, the follow-up to last month’s ‘A Scream’.  But where the latter was spacey and darkly psychedelic, ‘Better With You’ finds us very much at the kitchen-sink, with Charley’s lyrics outlining the image of a couple making the misstep of travelling to a wedding. Musically, it’s more raw too; the association with The White Stripes is apparent here, with the guitars stripped back and fuzzy and drums way up in the mix, and there’s a resemblance to The Lovely Eggs in there – no great surprise given Holly Ross’ own Britpop to neo-garage trajectory. In addition, with the lyrical evocation of chaotic people combined with lo-fi guitar, there’s also an echo of Wild Billy Childish’s work from the noughties, albeit with vocals that sound somewhat akin to Lush’s Miki Berenyi. That’s not to say that this has been simply slung together, even if – as Charley herself describes it – the track was virtually recorded as live, “guitar solo and all”.

Lyrically, the track heads in one direction, indicating that the pair it depicts are simply “better with” each other, before its spoken-word middle eight undoes all of our understanding. And that’s sort of the rub; Charley Stone clearly has lyrical and musical chops, and ideas for what she wants to do, it’s just (as she said in a recent interview), “all my experiences with bands…were synthesising into something inside me that I now need to do”. And it’s to our benefit that she has: as all her various bands already know, everything’s better with Charley.

Here Comes The Actual Band, the debut album from Charley Stone, is out on 29th May.

John McGovern
@etinsuburbiaego