Choosing to release an album during the world-changing Covid-19 lockdown is a bold move, but Luna Vexa is no ordinary artist. Defying convention has been the story of her career. For all her shimmering pop hooks and aesthetic beauty, her music bears honesty like an open wound. Stark and revealing, her debut album King Of Eve captures this essence across an array of powerfully moving tracks that find the perfect balance between ferocity and rapture.
Entirely crowd-funded, King Of Eve is both a gift to Luna from her fans, and an offering from her back to them. Alluring and dark, it is her greatest work to date – proving the Melbourne-based artist is not afraid to show who she really is. And while this tint of darkness has mostly precluded Luna from mainstream pop success, her lyrics bare her soul for the world to see – exploring themes of desperation, helplessness, love and lust… real places all of us have been.
Check out Luna Vexa – Like You Love Me on YouTube
“My music is my soul free in sound waves,” she says candidly. A survivor of physical and mental abuse, Luna was living on the street at 19 – unsure of her future, and a world away from the artist she was to become. Emerging from this dark past, Luna has proven time and time again that she is as tough as nails, though she has managed to balance this fervour with a softness and femininity that speaks from the heart.
No song on King Of Eve reaches this place with more impact than the album’s main single Like You Love Me. Truthful and uncensored, Like You Love Me typifies Luna Vexa’s ability to take what might have been a pop song and turn it into something far more meaningful and potent. Yet, in spite of its raw and powerful lyrics, Like You Love Me is still at its heart an incredibly catchy song. And so it goes for all of King Of Eve, which finds Luna drawing power from vulnerability.
King of Eve also highlights the exceptional chemistry between Luna, producer Jimmy Alexander and mixing/mastering engineer Austin Leeds – an expert team to provide the audio fidelity that Luna’s songs need without losing their essential bite. Alexander and Leeds have crafted deep, lush electronica that complement Luna’s fiery hooks and enchanting vocal delivery.
Autobiographical, artistically daring and just straight-up catchy, King Of Eve is a powerful record. At its heart is a unique artist whose determination and fearlessness continue to set her apart as one of the country’s best underground talents.
