(5 / 5)
“The Heart Wants What It Wants”, the debut album from Late Transmissions starring Eve Quartermain, is a striking piece of cinematic pop – where lush ’60s orchestration collides with jazz inflections and shadowy ’90s noir beats. It doesn’t just sound like a record; it feels like a film unfolding in slow motion.
Set for release 1st May, the project reunites producers David Balfe and David Hughes, former band mates in proto-synth act Dalek I Love You, and collaborators from the Merseyside post-punk scene. David Balfe’s journey, from Big In Japan and The Teardrop Explodes to founding influential labels such as Zoo and Food Records and championing acts including Blur and Echo & The Bunnymen, is well documented.
David Hughes, meanwhile, after playing with OMD carved out a formidable career in film and television scoring, including work on “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. Together, the two Davids channel a shared love of grand, orchestral pop; echoes of Scott Walker, John Barry, Shirley Bassey, and Dusty Springfield ripple throughout, into a sound that is both timeless and unmistakably modern.
At its core is Eve Quartermain – late of London and New York before finding herself back in Liverpool where it all started – whose vocal performance anchors the entire record. Eve is a real find. Her voice is magnetic, poised between fragility and control, capable of shifting from hushed intimacy to quiet command in an instant. It’s this tension that gives the album its emotional weight, drawing the listener into a world of longing and defiance.
The arrangements are rich and immersive: sweeping strings, echoing piano lines, and understated rhythms that pulse beneath the surface. A clear lineage to classic film scores, but it’s refracted through a darker, contemporary lens, with trip-hop textures and noir-pop flourishes adding depth. The result is something expansive and atmospheric; music that feels widescreen in scope yet intensely personal in execution.
Lyrically, the album inhabits the shadowier corners of human experience: heartbreak, isolation, endurance. Songs about survival as much as loss; carrying on when the odds are stacked against you. Eve Quartermain delivers them with conviction, her voice suggesting lived experience rather than mere performance.
Opening track “Avenging Angel” sets the tone with a bold declaration in the lyric: “This girl’s got a voice that will rip out your heart”, and over the next 10 tracks, the album plays out like a carefully constructed narrative. The title track expands the emotional scale, while “Lightning Never Strikes Twice” introduces a more rhythmic, trip-hop pulse.
“I Ruin Everything” arrives amid rain and city noise, capturing a moment of self-reflection before the darkly playful “A Little Drop of Poison”. Then “I’m Done With London” stands out; a theatrical, bittersweet highlight that feels tailor-made for a stage or screen. It gives way to the stark realism of “He’s An Unexploded Bomb”, before “At The Starlight Lounge” plunges into a world where dreams are steadily eroded by survival.
As the album builds toward its conclusion, “The Kiss That Kills” simmers with tension, leading into the dramatic “What Went Wrong”. The closing track, “She Finds Love Wherever She Can”, offers a quiet, poignant epilogue which is lonely, reflective and steeped in longing.
There’s a seamless, cinematic flow throughout, each track bleeding into the next, forming a continuous emotional arc rather than a collection of standalone songs. Released via Music Saves , “The Heart Wants What It Wants” arrives as a limited hand-numbered red vinyl edition with lyric booklet and signed art print, alongside CD and digital formats.
The timing feels almost suspiciously perfect, with the next James Bond film currently in development at Eon Productions and Amazon MGM Studios, this album practically sounds like an audition reel. If Bond 26 is searching for its next iconic theme, it may already be here:. “I’m Done With London” would be my choice; dramatic, stylish and dripping with intrigue. But in truth they’d be spoilt for choice across this utter gem.
“The Heart Wants What It Wants” proves one thing beyond doubt: this isn’t just an album, it’s a future classic.
By Manja Williams
(1 / 5) ‘Dull Zone’
(2 / 5) ‘OK Zone’
(3 / 5) ‘Decent Zone’
(4 / 5) ‘Super Zone’ (5 / 5) ‘Awesome Zone’
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