Angels And Cigarettes

It’s a sign of some pretty vacant musical times that Angels And Cigarettes, the major label debut from 24 year old Eliza Carthy, can saunter all the way to the Mercury Prize nominations list.

The daughter of veteran folk musicians Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, Carthy has moved away from the folk sounds of her previous offerings – Heat, Light And Sound and Red Rice – to join Beth Orton and David Gray in the newest genre post-Britpop: the folk-hop hybrid.

Over the course of ten tracks, strings, vocal layering, edgily insistent dance-beats and the strains of a melancholy violin are stirred into the melting pot. The results lie scattered between White Ladder and Talk On Corners.

The forthcoming single, ‘Whole’, featuring REM/Richard Ashcroft collaborator BJ Cole on pedal steel, swings jazzily. ‘Train Song’s’ voyeuristic theme is delivered with an intensity and grace that is genuinely affecting in its slow-burning build-up.

Too often, though, Angels And Cigarettes offers more Corrs-style bland than orchestral grand. ‘Beautiful Girl’ is slow wailing at its most off-putting. ‘The Company of Men’ disguises a tedious string-led tune with a naughty lyric (“I’ve given blow-jobs on couches/To men who didn’t want me anymore”). ‘Perfect’ is perfectly nondescript.

Carthy’s lyrics are by far her strongest suit, even if the continuous swirls and whirls of her arrangements keep trying to subsume them. ‘Fuse’ quietly shines with evocative, intelligent phrases while ‘Poor Little Me’ is disturbingly powerful.

Her delivery is clean but never very emotive with the result that melodic force is diluted by the strange disengagement in her voice.

The potential contained on Angels and Cigarettes marks Eliza Carthy out as a contender for the future. But on this outing, only sweet sparks indicate what might have been.