At first, NERINA PALLOT's new album "Fires" promises to be a nice solid, fairly normal, pop album. "Damascus", the opening track, is a soulful heartfelt rant about the ending of a relationship - it's contrived but powerful in it's own little way. Pallot's vocals are pure and clear, and seemingly genuine. "Sophia" is the highlight of the album, a lovely piano ballad with an effective blend of pop sensibility dotted with the odd jazz inflection.
Regrettably, after "Damascus", the alarm bells should have started ringing - because after these two tracks, the sublime pop ambience dies a violent and bloody death, and the Angst-Ridden-Female-On-A-Piano-Playing-In-3/4-And-Being-Very-Angry-At-All-Men-Ever-And-Also-Life-In-General-Lest-We-Forget takes centre stage. Enter the dragon.
"Idaho" is a shockingly demented, Lloyd-Webber-esque musical temper-tantrum, which copies the musical style of Tori Amos so completely, that the only difference is the decibels of the caterwauling (Mrs Amos can shatter glass at 100 meters when she gets going), and the lack of lyrical references to fairies and the Devil. And speaking of lyrics, they ALL take a sharp turn for the worse.
As the concept of "quality" lies on it's hospital bed flat-lining, the Angst-Ridden monster lurking beneath the bed of shiny pop jumps out, and the songs become self-indulgent to the point of petulance. "I'm sick of you all/ I'm sick of opinions/I'm sick of this war I wage on myself", oh grow up.
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There's even an attempt at humour, with the cringy "Geek Love" (because ugly people can find true romance too don't you know!), and then there's the desperately narcissistic "Nickindia" - the content of which is basically, "When I'm dead, be sure to tell everybody about ME" and what I did". Ignore the self-pitying nature of the track and you do have a pretty song, Pallot's vocals are really soulful and come out wonderfully here - but the content is too hard to stomach after a while.
It isn't very surprising that Pallot's songs (and website, and imagery, and everything) is distinctly like that of Tori Amos, given that some of her tracks were produced by Eric Ross. But still, it's no excuse. And Mrs Amos does it so very well - that lady is one scary Muther Trucker. In comparison, Pallot just doesn't cut the mustard in the angst-intensity/fear-inspiring department. However, fans of Bridget Jone's Dairy will probably relish this type of music, because it is ridiculously girly.
Pallot might want to edge away very slowly from the Angry-Brigade before it eats her musical career for breakfast, and stick to the more gentle side of pop, because it is clearly what she does best.
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