Polly Scattergood: s/t

These Al-Qaeda training camps: you gotta figure that every so often, a newly trained soldier leaves the fray, instructed to fight the 'holy' war and he just suddenly thinks "You know what, I like their dental plan, the hours are good, but the whole dynamite belt thing isn't really for me."

Casting off his explosive attire (accidentally into the grounds of an orphanage) he walks away, uses what he's learned as a life lesson in 'what not to do' and lives his life.

While the inevitable comparison between a terrorist training ground and the BRIT School for Performing Arts may be a harsh one - we'd like to apologise to its graduates for the insult of such a comparison to the BRIT school - there's no denying the sonic torture of their output. Amy Winehouse, the idiotic one from The Kooks, Leona Lewis, Kate Nash, Adele, Katie Melua, Dane Bowers, The Feeling. They're all pretty much at the top of collective Death Note wish-list. Yet, somehow, the fair maiden Miss Scattershot seems to have escaped the trappings of arrogant, self-satisfied blandness and managed to actually come up with something positive from the experience.

Whether it be by intention, or subconscious thought, her vocal influences range through all genres and eras. Kate Bush comparisons are shoveled on thick and fast. We detected an ample amount of Bjork in her inflection. Also present is the rough, barbed and frequently unhinged ghost of Queen Adreena/Daisy Chainsaw front-woman Katie Jane Garside. Basically, be in expectation of allusions to every slightly left-field female vocalist to be thrown her way. PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Kathleen Hanna, Regina Spektor, Karen O, Craig Nicholls. The list is endless, especially if you can't read.

Whether it be true-life, a role or an embellishment of fact (we veer towards the first option) the character of Polly within her debut album is undeniably a fascinating one. Consumed by doubt, paranoia, self-hatred, troubled memories, pathos, nervous hysteria and melancholic, nihilistic & suicidal tendencies. But underneath the words lies not a pantomime of pity-me surface wounds, but a Pinocchio tale for the modern day. A creation born hollow, rough and splintered, yearning for the realisation of her wish to just be a real girl. As she charts her poetic path through this narrative, it's difficult not to begin hanging on her every word.

Scattergood's work on the piano is also laudable. Forming the spine of the album, the ivory is embellished, accentuated and heightened by the low-key but ubiquitous mechaised glow of drum machines, softly swelling synthesizers and gentle blips. Never confined to the periphery entirely, the sparse yet eminent musical elements are capable of pushing Scattergood through a myriad of crescendos, manic flurries and cynical ballads.

First track "I Hate the Way" is a strong Litmus test for the rest of the album. Conveying everything that is grand about the album, and also a fair amount of that which will potentially grate, the seven-minute build-and-release breakdown-to-music should inform you as whether the company of Miss Scattergood will be pleasing to you.

  "Well you can take what you want cause I've got nothing,
  "Pass me some pills, and I will go to bed,
  "But, however much I toss and turn I feel a dark place up ahead...
  "My doctor said I've got to sing a happy tune"

"Untitled 27" contains the emotional flux of the album, featuring one of those rare occurrences where the performer is undoubtedly push to tears during their recording. "It hurts to touch", she effuses repeatedly, growing ever-more emotional with each repeat. If you haven't fallen in love with this woman by that point, you never will.

One could argue that all the truly eccentric material is compressed into the first part of the album, leaving the latter stages of her album somewhat bereft of the intensity and more focused upon more straightforward (we use the term relatively) fare. "Unforgiving Arms" narrowly saves itself from an increasingly grating working-class enunciated introduction by contorting itself into a graceful, streaming and fragile melody, and herein marks the shift to soft ballads and light rock, dance-stompers.

It's nowhere near a descent into mainstream tastes though, those fans of the BRIT School alumni prior to Scattergood would likely drop their crème de marron mont blancs. This woman has a whole lot of personality, a motherload of intrigue, an impressive vocal range and an aptitude for writing arresting and expectation-defying songs.