Queen Mab - Give The Bliss (2021)

Brighton-based duo Queen Mab release their debut album Give the Bliss on Glamjazz Records, on 11th June 2021. With production from Ashley Slater (Freak Power, Kitten and the Hip) and vocals from Hattie Snooks, the album is a sonic melting pot that defies genre, resulting in a riotous body of work that is simultaneously accessible and unique. There are bona fide festival bangers (Bitch Like Me, Hazy, Roll with the Punches), grooves made for strutting to (Mad-Ass Chemistry, Thirst Trap), and sexy, introspective numbers (If I Fall, Make Me Weak). Even at the farthest musical corners of this diverse record, it retains a cohesive sound, tied together by Snooks’ versatile, distinctive voice and canny skill as a wordsmith, matched with Slater’s brilliant electronic wizardry and joyous horns. Queen Mab’s album is much like its namesake, the Shakespearean character: irreverent yet commanding, escapist, ethereal, alluring, slightly unhinged... Fun, but with an undeniable darker streak. In terms of genre, it is a heady witches brew of wildly eclectic influences. A pinch of trip-hop here, a dash of breakbeat there, a healthy dollop of funk, a drizzle of folk, and lashings of R&B, soul, and jazz. Ostensibly, it's pop, but it is also indisputably a sound that only this duo could make. Queen Mab may be the simple and unfettered result of two friends enjoying themselves in the studio, but with its sense of dramatic flair, witty lyricism, musical kudos, and banging beats, it may also prove to be the stuff of legend...