Mechanical Bride – Umbrella

I stumbled upon this track a few days ago watching the latest Magnum ice cream advert, featuring Rupaul’s Drag Race star Willam Belli and became instantly transfixed on this haunting cover of Rihanna’s classic hit.

Mechanical Bride is the guise of twenty five year old Lauren Doss, a London based singer-songwriter, who’s enchanting cover of Umbrella has remastered a classic pop track, into a sombre sounding, transcending piano driven piece.

Replacing the drum break and Jay’z’ vocals from Rihanna’s original format, a baron piano begins Doss’ covers in an evocative silence, drawing on the essence of other modern indie acts such as Cherry Glazerr on their cover of Tip Toe Through The Tulips, for Insidious III. However, no screeching guitars or partially loud vocals are present on Doss’s cover. Instead, her vocals remain subdued, allowing the repeating piano keys and xylophone ‘riff’ to provide the tracks impending sense of alluring danger.

Spanning an attention claiming four and a half minutes, Doss’s tone shifts Umbrella from being an upbeat, loveable pop song, into a creepy, hypnotising piece, that preys upon the feeble minded with it’s misguidingly benign demeanour. Doss’s cover has captured my mind and will more than likely capture a few more.