Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Acknowledging the demons and angels that drive you is one thing, to actively seek them out, to knock on their own door in the dead of night and ask them to dance, is quite another. By taking this course of action, being proactive and seeing them smile after an exhausting session in which you are in control, somehow the demon is diminished, not quite eradicated but made too drained to care about upsetting the creative process; the demon may dance, the angelic voice may soar, but it is too the artist that all ends well for.

Emily Lee has not just danced her demon away it seems, she has taken it out the back and given it such a vigorous shake down that what has appeared has made the muse, who was tucked away out of sight, come forth, scold the unforgiving fiend and join in the dance. It is a foxtrot for the age, a pirouette for the senses and a series of endearing waltz’s that sees Ms. Lee and the five songs that make up her Dance My Demon Away E.P. embrace a sense of freedom, of release and one that carries her voice into a different ether, into another space.

It is in that space that Ms. Lee excels, the measured tone of her voice finding a way to appease demon, angel and muse alike and have more than enough left over to make the listener wistfully dream and take solace in the songs Caroline, The Game, How It Goes, Sleep With A Stranger and the E.P.’s title track, Dance My Demon Away.

It is in the dance that we learn to appreciate the ways of others, the boogie we enjoy, for others a moment of penitentiary, what is needed is recognition that in between the beat the demon grows hungry, so no matter the different dance we at least keep ourselves in touch with the muse; it is a muse that Emily Lee has clasped wholeheartedly.

Ian D. Hall