Scott Lavene: Vehicles, Buses, Bedsits and Outlets
CD | LP | DL
Out there from 22 August 2025
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
Scott Lavene’s third album is a pleasant, wistful exploration of age, longing, lust and marathon highway journeys
These already acquainted with Scott Lavene will know his terrain: pin-sharp, kitchen-sink observations, rites-of-passage vignettes, musical snapshots of a misplaced – if fondly remembered – Essex youth.
Our gnarled protagonist’s daydreams could also be of ladies, glitz and glamour – see the sensible Sadly I’m Not Steve McQueen, from 2024’s Disneyland in Dagenham – however his coronary heart belongs firmly to the A13: the DNA that snaps him like an emotional bungee twine again to reminiscences of vehicles, ladies, funds booze, and mad-cap adventures. Three albums deep and the novelty of Lavene’s comic-tinged schtick might simply have began to lose its attraction. It’s testomony to his expertise – and co-producers Stew Jackson and Ryan Rogers’ sympathetic method – that the ten numbers that make up Vehicles, Buses, Bedsits and Outlets are painted in vivid colors, brushstrokes lovingly utilized from an expanded musical palette.
There’s some effective storytelling at work right here. Lavene’s spirit could also be punk, however the steel-capped DMs are planted firmly within the folks custom. His eager ear for melody shines by means of the nasal twang of his supply – a sing-speech method each charmingly downhome and extremely acceptable, all of a bit with the geography of his tales. The songwriting chops are matched by a watch for lyrical element that often transforms the humdrum into moments of actual depth and poignancy; a neat trick that has a behavior of catching you off guard. Take third single providing, and opening observe Muscle Automotive, the place Lavene goals of his fantasy ‘62 Chevy Impala’, a motor for which he possesses solely the quantity plate, purchased from a boot sale, however goals of sooner or later proudly owning in full. It brings to thoughts Johnny Money’s 1976 One Piece at a Time, during which our hero goals to steal his dream automotive little by little from the meeting line; solely in Lavene’s world, the realisation hits that the automotive’s function serves solely as a metaphor for want – the woman means the whole lot – ‘extra to me than any muscle automotive, you’re my French riviera’.
As a calling card, it’s thematically good. Vehicles habitually loom giant in Lavene’s panorama – in truth, there’s a music (one other single reduce) by that very title. Towards the backdrop of a tough abrasive guitar, Lavene lists the motors of his life, their personalities and the scrapes they’ve landed him in – ‘my Granada was the pleasure of the faculty automotive park… ‘the smoke from the tyres lined us in a theatrical mist’. By no means have the small print of a New Yr’s drive from Romford to Edinburgh – fuelled (amongst different issues) by the adrenalin-boosting injection of the Baywatch soundtrack – appeared fairly so engaging.
There may be a lot to thrill in right here – it’s nice enjoyable from first observe to final. A Bus in July is a magnificence, the place Lavene’s approach with imagery proves notably potent – ‘hotter than a Greek canine struggle’, with a ‘service bag filled with custard’, and a love curiosity that ‘smelt of second-hand books and newly washed hair.’
Shades of classic Springsteen will be detected on the charming Dwelling, the place the motorik chug of a cheap-sounding drum machine drives swelling key modifications, in opposition to a thumbnail, blue-collar backdrop of Romford life and love, replete with boy racers and fruit machines: ‘Now the one city we’ve ever recognized fades backstage, you see dwelling just isn’t a spot, it’s an individual’.
Additionally it is a document that rewards the listener the extra time they spend with it. There’s an odd contact of prog rock on Breakdown, a refrain reminiscent, of all issues, of early Break up Enz – that’s earlier than Lavene brings us crashing again to actuality – ‘I’m hanging on to an ashtray with an image of Rod Stewart, that I obtained from the little village reward store’. Listening on headphones reveals additional layers: muttered background noises, or vocal ticks that each one feed neatly into the combo.
Above all, although, beneath the mockney insurgent exterior lies an enormous, beating romantic coronary heart, and a burning want for connection. It is likely to be understanding, but it surely’s by no means arch. By turns wistful and playful, when the joke, because it so usually is, is on Lavene, we’re all laughing with him, and simply as exhausting as he’s laughing at himself – a correct diamond within the tough. Half Ray Davies, half Billy Bragg. All Scott Lavene.
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You could find Scott Lavene on-line right here Scott Lavene Bandcamp and right here Scott Lavene Instagram
All phrases by Steve Morgan @stevemorgan68.bsky.social. His profile is right here.
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