New Music: Introducing - Lyra

Here at Breaking More Waves HQ there’s one part of the year that I always looking nervously forward to. It's around the middle of May - when two major musical events on my calendar occur. One is Brighton’s Great Escape, Europe’s largest new music festival, the other is Eurovision, Europe’s largest new music song contest. Why the anxiousness? It's whilst I wait to see if the two dates will conflict. Thankfully for the last couple of years the events have been on consecutive weekends and I've been able to enjoy both.

Now yes, I fully understand that some of you will sneer at Eurovision (especially in the UK) but you won’t find any ridicule in my house. After all, this is the competition that not only gave us a band that made some of the catchiest (and towards their end saddest) pop songs of all time (ABBA), but more recently brought us Euphoria by Loreen, a glorious piece of dance pop that I will never grow tired of hearing. 

Why do I mention Eurovision right now? Because of new Irish artist Lyra. I could quite imagine her appearing on a stage at Great Escape, but equally I could visualise Broken Down, the third song she has released from her debut EP W.I.L.D (which stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream), and the first I’ve featured on the blog, being Ireland’s entry for the international song contest. It’s a belter of a tune with a message of resilience. It manages to be both colossal with a tribe of passionate beating drums and a power-surging vocal delivery (fans of Florence and the Machine will no doubt approve) but also tender and intimate in its starting moments as Lyra sings of being broken. You can just imagine the flamethrowers, the wind machines and of course the army of drummers backing a spectacular performance that would make Johnny Logan proud.

Lyra’s debut EP is released on the 15th July. The preliminary dates of next year's Eurovision Song Contest are 9th May (First Semi-Final), 11th May (Second Semi-Final), and 13th May (Grand Final) 2017. The definitive dates will be announced as soon as the host city is known. The Great Escape has not yet confirmed its plans for 2017. I’m hoping it’s waiting for Eurovision to confirm fully to avoid a clash.

Lyra - Broken Down