Paloma Faith - Picking Up The Pieces

I have to admit, I never bought in to Paloma Faith the first time around. Sure, the lovely string-soaked refrains of New York were nice enough, but I never felt compelled to go out and buy her album. And new single Picking Up The Pieces - the first from her second album - still leaves me unconvinced too. She's still going that heady retro-soul thing, all theatrical vocals and liberal dollops of star-dust thrown in for good measure. But in a post-Someone Like You world, there's the sense that torchbearing female singers like Paloma have to up the ante a bit. And Someone Like You isn't that - moreover just a sort of reasonably pleasant coasting along. As a pretty thing, Picking Up The Pieces is undoubtedly a curio worth more than a cursory bit of interest, but even the gospel choir that surges up on its final choruses can't seem to elevate it to something more profound than that.

Picking Up The Pieces is released on the 21st May.