★★★★☆Brighton’s Rose Elinor Dougall was once of the girl group the Pipettes and is the bassist in Mark Ronson’s touring outfit, but her real strength is the purity of her voice. Unlike most indie/pop stars she doesn’t go in for vocal mannerisms or emotional signifiers, instead singing with the kind of detached clarity usually relegated to British folk music. The twist is that this voice is aligned to shiny, catchy electro-pop with lyrics about the vagaries of 21st-century life; exactly the kind of thing serious-minded folkies generally pull Aran jumpers over their heads to block out. The title track articulates the excitement and uncertainties of youth in three zinging minutes, while the lovely piano ballad Poison Ivy ponders the pains of jealousy in a melancholic…

Source: The Times January 27, 2017 00:04 UTC