Ladyhawke Wild Things CD

People wonder why there's always a massive gap between my albums," says Pip Brown, better known as Ladyhawke, the one-woman synth-pop act from New Zealand. The reason is both complicated and easy. The simple explanation: "I've never released anything I'm not proud of. That's important to me."Those instincts have served Brown well, starting with her self-titled debut in 2008, which peaked at No. 16 on the U.K. album charts and No. 1 in Australia and New Zealand's album charts. Ladyhawke's more aurally angular follow-up, Anxiety, charted in the U.K.'s Top 40 and in Australia's and New Zealand's Top 20, respectively. Brown's conviction to authenticity led her on a journey starting in 2013. Over three years, she scrapped a full Ladyhawkealbum ("The material didn't feel like me. It felt too dark or something"). Once reliant on alcohol to surmount social anxiety ("I'd never done a sober show in my life until last December"), she quit drinking and focused on getting healthy. Then she welcomed that newfound clarity by crafting her latest release, the blissed-out Wild Things. "This album has given me a sense of purpose. Even if it took me months or years to get that purpose, as soon as I finished that record it was like an unbelievable weight was lifted off my shoulders," she says. You can hear that freedom in Wild Things'unabashed exuberance, a powerful, vibrant expression of life itself. "Everything I wrote was all the stuff I was going through. I got it out of my system, exorcised it from my soul.

1. A Love Song 2. The River 3. Wild Things 4. Let It Roll 5. Chills 6. Sweet Fascination 7. Golden Girl 8. Hillside Avenue 9. Money to Burn 10. Wonderland 11. Dangerous