In an interview for the seminal concert movie Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, acting as the interviewer in his own interview asks himself, ‘I don’t think you have a very good voice, but you’re a singer. How do you do that?’
‘The better the singer’s voice,’ replies Byrne, ‘the harder it is to believe what they’re saying.’
This quote rang true during Rosi Lalor’s Flowers for the Living at The Newsroom. She is by no means a terrible singer, but there is a soft yet distinct warbling struggle to her voice that, instead of hindering her performance, manages to ground a set that often tackles obtuse and tired themes.
Songs such as ‘Life Goes On’, ‘Leap of Faith’ and ‘Someone’s Missing’ led to some mild groans as she delved once more into another meditation on love, life and feeling like a disenfranchised loner. But, due to the unpolished nature of her voice, she managed to rein in the thematic enormity of her songs and make the big and unruly seem small and relatable - even if it was done unintentionally.
She is an undeniably charming performer and her Spanish-influenced guitar style is dreamy and sweet, complimenting her voice well. There is an engaging honesty about her which assists in making the predictable, trite warrens she explores with her music more interesting than they should be.
To quote Byrne again ‘I try to write songs about small things... love is kinda big.’ If Lalor takes this into consideration when composing her next work, focusing her writing on smaller subjects, she could hit upon something even more intriguing.
