R.W. Grace: Love It Need It Miss It Want It

It’s also a makeover of sorts. R.W. Grace, the Perth-based musician behind the EP, once recorded under the name Grace Woodroofe, and to call Love It Need It Miss It Want It a stylistic departure from her previous work would be an understatement. Whereas Woodroofe’s work was considered and acoustic, Grace’s slick, sultry tunes derive their power from sheer excess. A song like the brilliant ‘Down Looking Above’ gains hypnotic power with every sweep of its debauched chorus, and by its conclusion tips right over into the realm of the gleefully melodramatic.

Indeed, what with its ultra-polished instrumentation and Grace’s scale-climbing voice, Love It Need It Miss It Want It is like the soundtrack for a yet unwritten Broadway show. Songs like ‘All The Friends I Lost’ and ‘Bound For Tragedy’ combine heartfelt emotion with the black latex sheen of intoxicating perversity.

Love It Need It Miss It Want It doesn’t as much end as it does reach climax, and by the time it’s over, one is left reeling. This is exactly the kind of pop we need: overstuffed, overwrought and essential.