Paloma Faith, Fall to Grace (RCA)

Arts Editor

Wednesday 30 May 2012

She appeared with Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?

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Keith Bruce

in 2009 when we were awash with new female singers and Paloma Faith stood out for her confident music-theatre style and extravagant hair and outfits. With her second collection that taste in show songs is still much in evidence, alongside the obligatory use of sequenced synthesisers in 1980s style.

She has an unfortunate penchant for titles that are similarly over-familiar – Picking Up the Pieces, Black & Blue, Blood Sweat & Tears and Freedom – which imply her lyrics are much more derivative than they are. There are few startling insights here, but the mix of the personal (Just Be) with the more political (Black & Blue) is contemporary and matched to good, if never startlingly original, tunes.In fact this could have been a much better album than it is, and that is down to the input of producer Nellee Hooper. Although he has, oddly, said he had no notion who Faith was when he was asked to work with her, he has also compared doing so with his reputation-making collaboration with Bjork on Debut. If he'd brought some of that album's sonic inventiveness to the project it would have helped.

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Paloma Faith, Fall to Grace (RCA)

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