Eliza Doolittle – Eliza Doolittle

Weird one this. Eliza Doolittle is a 21 year old whose debut album kicks off with Moneybox, where she sounds like someone trapped somewhere between Lily Allen’s street mateyness and Marina & The Diamonds over the top affected vocals. This combined with a chirpy, almost ragtime tune sprinkled with tinkling sounds, makes for a weird listen indeed. What follows however isn’t bad at all, if hardly likely to set the world alight critically or commercially. Go Home is a delightful shoop shoop, sixties pop shimmy for instance, something I never saw coming after the first track. Mr Medicine you see is pure Lily, but lacking a certain edge. Same with Missing. Some may think this is an easy and cheap comparison to make, but it’s a true one and it’s inevitable that a second wave of songstresses will come forward, as it happens with most scenes. A Smokey Room is slightly sassy, but still not riveting. And so it goes on. It’s all thoroughly pleasant, but terribly derivative. You see, Nobody is a lovely little tune, full of the joys of spring, but also one I’ve heard done better before. Pack Up swings in a lovely way and has some great bluesy backing vocals courtesy of an unidentified gent. It finishes with Empty Hand, a rather sweet lullaby to ease you out. So overall it’s nice enough, but not ground breaking.

The album is released by Parlophone sometime in June and is preceeded by a single, Skinny Genes, on April 5th.

Eliza Doolittle's website is here