Light After Dark

Light After Dark
Studio album by Clare Maguire
Released	24 February 2011
Recorded	2008 – 2010
Genre	Trip-hop, electropop
Length	45:15
Label	Polydor
Producer	Fraser T. Smith
Clare Maguire chronology
Light After Dark (2011) TBR (2012 or 2013)
Singles from Light After Dark
"Ain't Nobody" Released: 17 October 2010[1] "The Last Dance" Released: 20 February 2011 "The Shield and the Sword" Released: 9 May 2011 "You're Electric" Released: 28 November 2011

Light After Dark is the debut album by British singer-songwriter Clare Maguire which went in at number 7 in the UK Albums Chart. "Ain't Nobody" was released as the first single from the album on 18 October 2010, followed by "The Last Dance", which was released on 20 February 2011.

Contents 1 Composition 2 Artwork 3 Critical reception 4 Singles 5 Track listing 6 Charts and release history 6.1 Charts 6.2 Release history 7 References

Composition

Maguire worked solely with producer and songwriter Fraser T Smith, with the exception of "Freedom" which was produced by German producer Crada and songwriting team Parallel. The iTunes pre-order track "Burn" was produced by Starsmith.

Artwork

The artwork premiered on Maguire's Facebook page on 7 February 2011. She announced the artwork was shot by photographer Aitken Jolly.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
BBC Music	(negative)[2]
The Daily Telegraph	[3]
Drowned in Sound	(3/10)[4]
Evening Standard	[5]
The Guardian	[6]
The Independent	[7]
The Irish Times	[8]
NME	(2/10)[9]
The Observer	(mixed)[10]
Q Magazine	[11]
Yahoo! Music	(5/10)[12]

Light After Dark received generally mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic the album received an average score of 50 out of 100 based on 12 critical reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews",^[13] while Aggregating website AnyDecentMusic? reports a score of 4.7 based on fifteen professional reviews.^[14] John Aizlewood, writing for Q magazine, compliments Clare's vocals on the album, believing them to be "a rich, deep, anguished rumble, hewn from the very depths of her stomach", and notes the album is "not short of songs" either.^[11] Bryan Boyd of The Irish Times noticed that Maguire "eschews r’n’b tics and hip-hop inflections to marry a classic 1960s Dusty-style vocal with modern studio trimmings" and felt that the album "is coming down with elegance, style and promise".^[8] Andrew Perry, of The Daily Telegraph wrote that "contrary to the advance hype, Maguire [...] is hardly the new Kate Bush, rather a flat-out belter of the Adele/Florence school, surrounded variously by daft orchestral sturm-und-drang and flimsy ProTools disco/house", and awarded the album three out of five stars.^[3] David Smyth of the Evening Standard wrote that Maguire's "sound is grandiose, ever-so-slightly Gothic and frequently overwrought" and noticed that "she's in possession of a few fine pop tunes", but "the spectre of Susan Boyle rears its head when she tones down the backdrop".^[5] Ally Carnwath from The Observer praised her voice but felt that "the songs themselves – a box-checking collection of commercial belters – do her few favours" and criticized the "over-egged production".^[10] Jaime Gill of Yahoo! Music called the album "blustering and oddly emotionally lacking", however he felt that it "has some redeeming features" such as "Maguire's blowy, showy voice".^[12]

Lewis G. Parker of BBC Music wrote that Light After Dark "is just the latest CD to keep in the car for the drive home after a hard day at the office"; he called the songs "unadventurous", the lyrics "so vague [...] that they can be interpreted to mean whatever we like" and stated that it "communicates nothing other than a total lack of imagination".^[2] Michael Hann of The Guardian praised Maguire's voice, however he noted that she is "another startling talent whose every point of interest has been sandblasted off between being signed and getting her album out".^[6] Andy Gill from The Independent wrote that "over the course of an album her tremulous, stentorian con-tralto becomes hectoring" and noticed that "at full blast, she has the emotive subtlety of a foghorn". He concluded by saying that "a more restrained approach might expose her sensitivities".^[7] Krystina Nellis from Drowned in Sound gave a negative review, saying that "the album’s fundamental fault is that none of it feels like it is coming from the girl herself"; she went on to add that "the vague ‘empowerment’ lyrics are so full of clichéd clangers they actually age Maguire several years, and reduce her to sounding like little more than a session singer for hire" and eventually described the album as "uninteresting".^[4] Laura Snapes of NME was equally negative; she wrote that the album contains "12 songs eruditely critiquing social plight with Viz-level wit", criticized Maguire's "gratingly wannabe-adult voice" and concluded by stating that the album's "central failing is having a woman roughly the same age as Katy B singing songs that’d sound a bit sexless at a WI Christmas party".^[9]

Singles

• "Ain't Nobody" was the first single from the album, released as a digital download on 17 October 2010; it peaked at number 78 in the UK Singles Chart. A music video was uploaded at Youtube on September 8, 2010. It has reached over 550,000 views.^[15]

• "The Last Dance", the second single from the album, was released on 20 February 2010 as a digital download, and 21 February as a physical release; it has reached number 23 in the UK Singles Chart.

• "The Shield and the Sword" was announced as the third single from the album on twitter (9 March 2011).

• "You're Electric" was the fourth single released on November 28.

Track listing

As well as premiering the artwork for the album, Maguire also announced the tracklisting for the album.^[16]

Charts and release history

The album entered the Official UK Album Chart at Number 7. It spent a total of 5 weeks in the top 100 since its release.

Charts Chart (2011) Peak position Irish Albums Chart[17] 34 UK Albums Chart[18] 7 Polish Albums Chart[19] 57 Scottish Albums Chart 6

Release history Region Date Label Ireland 24 February 2011 Polydor United Kingdom 28 February 2011 Polydor United States 7 June 2011 Universal Republic

References

Clare Maguire Discography Studio albums Light After Dark Singles "Ain't Nobody" "The Last Dance" "The Shield and the Sword" "You're Electric" Related articles Polydor Records Sound of...