PALOMA FAITH – Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?
PALOMA FAITH – Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?
Written by Elle Hunt   
Saturday, 12 December 2009 21:35
Paloma Faith – Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful? There’s no doubt that PALOMA FAITH is a born entertainer.

She’s got a degree in contemporary dance; worked as a magician’s assistant; belonged to a burlesque troupe; sang for a covers band dubbed Paloma & The Penetrators; and acted alongside Bond girl Gemma Arterton in the recent ‘St. Trinian’s’ remake, and the late Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Imagination Of Dr. Parnassus’.

And going by her debut album, the cumbersomely-titled ‘Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?’, she can sing, too.

However, none of its ten tracks left me confident that she could count song-writing among her countless talents.
Paloma Faith is the latest songstress to tag onto the neo-soul revival, which came about more or less entirely due to the success of Amy Winehouse’s debut back in 2003. Since then, numerous impressionists have attempted to topple Ms. Winehouse from her throne, most notably, the doe-eyed, pint-sized Welshwoman Duffy. However, rather than channelling a retro sound, Faith is comparable to fellow Brit VV Brown in that both have put a modern spin on the style. However, having heard Brown’s ‘Travelling Like The Light’, I have to say that I like her much better than Faith. Her songs are better-crafted, less repetitive... and less repetitive.

Yes: I’m aware that repetition is a key aspect of any pop song worth its salt (look at ‘Hey Jude’), but Ms. Faith seems to take this to the extreme. Flick through the lyrics printed in the album’s inner leaflet, and see the words “Repeat chorus” altogether too much. It’s a shame, because her hooks are good, her voice is tuneful, and her lyrics are decent: it’s just that when you hear that good hook, and those decent lyrics, sung by that tuneful voice over, and over again, their initial appeal goes out the window.

‘Sober’ is her first single, and you’ll have doubtless heard it on the radio: it’s one of those crossover hits that would appeal to the listeners of most stations, except perhaps Solid Gold FM (“the best of the sixties and seventies”). ‘Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?’ opens with ‘Sober’, and fair enough: it is the album’s best track. Even second single ‘New York’ drags, and the inclusion of a gospel choir makes it seem unnecessarily melodramatic (as it did to La Roux’s ‘Cover My Eyes’; it seems that the go-to trick for making a song seem “epic” and “heartfelt” these days is to enlist the help of a large chorus). Indeed, melodrama seems to be something that comes a little too easily to Faith, with second track ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ employing the sort of lush orchestration best left until a little later on in an album’s track-listing. The song that comes closest to rivalling the catchiness and spirit of ‘Sober’ is ‘Upside Down’, which finds Faith playfully reinterpreting the swing styles of days gone by, complete with finger-clicking and jubilant male backing singers.

In a way, I found this album lacking in the same way as I did Little Boots’ debut, 'Hands'. Both Faith and Little Boots’ Victoria Hesketh are able singers that had successful singles (‘Sober’ being the answer to Hesketh’s ‘New In Town’), but in both cases, the rest of the album didn’t live up to the hype created by its single. Paloma Faith is attempting to be the more modern and quirky answer to Duffy and Amy Winehouse, but VV Brown does so much better – and considering how many brilliant female artists came to light in 2009 (Pixie Lott; Marina & The Diamonds; Florence and the Machine; La Roux; Ellie Goulding) - Faith is, like Hesketh, bound to fall short. It’s just as well then, that she has a wide variety of talents to fall back on.
 

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