Review: Paloma Faith - Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful

Joining Britain's soul music forces, new addition Paloma Faith had to go through plenty of criticism, often being downsized to an Amy-Winehouse-wannabe or an Adele-copycat. Faith admits that she has always had awed rich soul voices and has occasionally tried to imitate them, but after some time she actually found herself in the wide music field. Despite critics opinions Paloma's debut album "Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?" deserves your attention, unless you are not all fed up with the whole wave of white chicks spilling their guts out to sound as black as they can.

If you give the album a chance you'll realize that Paloma has put a lot of effort and it would have actually sounded pretty damn good, if it hadn't been the year of 2009. Sadly, as it may be, Faith has got on the train a bit too late and what her fellow Brit gals had already done, she was just about to do. It's not that the album sounds as if it was recorded in the 50s, that perhaps is it's best trait, but it's awfully reminiscent of several debut albums from the last 4-5 years and you could easily fail to notice that "Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?" is not by Duffy or Adele. The whole record is elegantly structured, flowing from one song to the next one, leading through topics like faithfulness, loneliness, love and disappointment.

"Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?" seems to suffer of poor promotion, as for the time being Faith lacks all the media attention Duffy-alikes got some time ago. Don't get me wrong, everyone for themselves, but Paloma's debut release may come out with a bit of a delay and still it gets to blow off tops, which seem to feel annoyingly secure about their careers. Looking forward to a next release, unless she changes careers again.

Songs to hear: "Stone Cold Sober", "New York", "Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?" and "Play On"

Rating: 7/10

Recommendation weekly: Nneka

Nneka's style could be described as Bob Marley meets Erykah Badu with a heavy African influence. This young, relatively still unknown, German-based Nigerian-born singer offers her very own experiences, beliefs and causes she eagerly supports. Nneka, originally from the Igbo ethnic group, has tries a few styles through her career extending from hip-hop, reggae, trip-hop and soul with a world music twist. Spending her childhood in her hometown of Warri, Nigeria Nneka tells stories that explore the diversity of African culture, the clash of modern thinking with traditionalism and the struggles that most African go through on daily basic. Criticizing capitalism and the self-absorption of Western societies Nneka makes some excellent good points that deserve to be heard out loud. To me Nneka is another living proof that music can still have a definite social connotation.

Review: VV Brown - Travelling Like the Light

VV Brown's success is virtually travelling with the light after the release of her highly anticipated debut album. Vanessa, of course VV is not a real name, offers an intriguing combination of electronica, funk and dance with a few strings of alternative and soul. A debut that easily could be among the best ones for 2009 and deserves your attention. Brown's major plus is the fusion of club friendly rhythms with the vibes of underground, which is brought to life with the distinctive use of various instruments and backing on plenty of styles.

Seen as a refined combination of Grace Jones and Erykah Badu, wrapped up in her own originality and stage presence VV Brown is virtually one of the next-best-things to storm the commercial sphere. Nevertheless, Brown's post-modern influences could be considered as both flaws or advances. To me, "Travelling Like the Light" is a fresh attempt to be apart from the mass and still sound accessible and friendly. Sadly, Brown's determination to swing back to the 50s-70s reminds me painfully too much of Duffy and Adele, exceeding the recommended retro dose.

Although often put somewhere in the indie niche, VV Brown is anything but indie. As soon as Island Records, which is part of Universal Music, becomes an independent label VV and alike can proudly call themselves indie-pop. Island being annoyingly cautious take Brown's promotion step by step that keeps her still criminally unknown. Probably under the label's pressure "Travelling Like the Light" deliberately allowed styles to flow into one another creating an idiosyncratic structure for every taste. Of course, even a fifth grader knows that this is a big load of nonsense. Brown proves to be an excellent funk/doo-woop/R&B singer, but she most certainly lacks that electronica vibe that makes you wanna go to every club eager to boogie to her tracks.

Tracks to hear: "Shark in the Water", "Back In Time", "Travelling Like the Light" and "Crying Blood"

Rating: 7/10