Laura-Mary Carter
St Pancras Old Church, London
★★★

IT’s a new start for Laura-Mary Carter. While she’s a veteran of hundreds of gigs, an accomplished guitarist and stalwart of Brighton’s indie-punk outfit Blood Red Shoes, after 20 years of touring she’s finally playing her first headline solo show.

And for that she’s chosen a truly intimate venue, London’s St Pancras Old Church. It’s full of icons, religious ephemera, candles and a smattering of indie kids and dads.

Supported by a five-piece backing band, she takes the audience — half seated on pews and half standing — through a selection of 13 tracks that offer an insight into her general outlook, observations and obsessions.

Show opener Fail to Explain sets out her stall. It’s an acoustic guitar-driven tune with a country edge and a hint of 1950s rock and roll’s past, over which Carter sings a forlorn tale of woe and wonder. Four Letter Words follows and offers more of the same. The band are tight and aligned, Carter’s acoustic guitar is backed by keys and drums, while the electric supports rather than steals the show.

June Gloom is not a cover of The Like track, but actually evokes that band’s ’60s feel, touching on Carter’s obsession with UFOs it also offers a good hint of Cults-like Wall of Sound style rock crossed with that vein of country that keeps coming back.

Other highlights include Elvis Widow, and Town Called Nothing from her earlier EP definitely brings out a Lana Del Rey feel, but then Carter has been living in LA for a while.

There are echoes of The Pastels tweeness, a bit of the fairy goth of All About Eve, but the main element is Carter channelling that Del Rey melancholia and taking her own guitar driven sound elsewhere.

It all comes with that country twang which is very now, although she’s been ploughing that furrow since her debut EP years ago.

While Carter’s sweet voice stands out, it might be nice if she moved away from the acoustic guitar and embraced her electric roots more starkly, but for now this is an intimate introduction to her slightly Twin Peaks-lite and a tad countrified world. Still, it’s worth a visit.

Tour dates and album release tbc. For more information see: lauramarycarter.com.