Send "Polly Scattergood " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Slantmagazine |
 Blame it on immaturity or ambition, but there's an overcrowded sloppiness to Polly Scattergood's songs, which bubble over with a splashy profusion of earnest emotion, bad poetry, and teary drama on her self-titled debut. Either way, it's not a consequence of inexperience, considering the 800-plus songs the 22-year-old has reportedly written; it's hard to imagine the amount of emotional struggle that must have been expended in spilling out all this tortured soul-searching. Beyond threatening suicide and playing coy with whispered vocals, Scattergood fidgets with the bad girl/innocent child dynamic, the juxtaposition of which is just tired enough to bear obvious, but still creepy, dividends. She claims in the album's press release to be drawn to the "dark, horrible things in art and literature" as well as Saturday morning cartoons, which accurately captures the image she has painted of a wounded but cherubic songbird trapped between adolescence and adulthood. There's a little bit of both here, the darkly literate and the immature, in the gloomy, depressive states into which her songs dip their toes and the puerile, flat way they paddle out of them, be it deflated spoken-word breakdowns or suicidal bleakness giving way to soaring, self-affirming choruses. Despite this, Scattergood still manages to get by on musical skill. Opener "I Hate the Way" nearly breaks even with its mix of callow lyrics and brash guitar-pop, until the music drops out near the end, leaving an artless recital of crummy verse that derails the entire song. Scattergood's best songs make the lyrics a non-issue by pushing them to the side, fitting her words to effective pop structures that don't necessarily require a strong poetic presence. "Other Too Endless," for example, works off a steady, uphill climb, where theatrical whispers eventually give way to redemptive shouts. "Nitrogen Pink" is similarly agreeable, hinting at future potential for her lyrics, with more reserved nods to "sweet rotting memories." The song utilizes a similar progressive buildup, proving that Scattergood is at her best when she lets her music speak for itself....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| Polly Scattergood, an Essex-bred singer groomed at music school, composed more than 800 songs before she cobbled together this debut, a stat brandished in her promotional materials. This mass of material was whittled down to a highly stylized alternative pop album featuring several tracks that don’t deserve a space on it. But alas, a debut can be forgiven like no other album in an artist’s repertoire, especially when it features a song like the 2007 single “Nitrogen Pink” — a standout, or at the very least a stander among assertive but often forgettable pieces. It’s hard to know what to make of many of Scattergood’s tracks, but during “Nitrogen Pink,” my bafflement lost its edge and I paid complete attention. Scattergood’s vision is so odd, full of chirping whimsy, moody sustains, and tickling sound effects, that it was easy to imagine diamonds buried beneath poppy drum patterns and out of sight, while “Pink” continued to hog the spotlight. This turned out to be true. “I Hate The Way,” the album’s opener, is instantly warm and powerful, a perfect place to start the album over. Its thickly layered melody rolls in after a timid and unimpressive intro. The singer introduces her habit of prioritizing words far ahead of melody and far, far ahead of rhythm. She stands very close to the mic, billowing, screeching, and sidling up to it, hurling man-inspired frustration out into the room and back at herself....full text |
| Bbc |
| Polly Scattergood claims to have written 800 songs at the BRIT school, which aside from genuine talents like Amy Winehouse and Adele Adkins spawned The Feeling, Another Level and The Kooks' frontman Luke Pritchard. The chanteuse from rural Essex overcomes any dire Kookiness on her eponymous debut album to create an intimate and rich set of songs. I Hate The Way melds vivid lyrics (''We had pennies in our pockets, we had hope in our eyes'') with horror movie synths and trip-hop beats in engaging fashion and this is swiftly followed by single Other Too Endless. This is one of Polly's best and most energetic songs, a terrific jab of huge drums and Suede circa Coming Up guitar distortion tied to a vocal where the East Anglian lady sounds like a superior Katie White from The Ting Tings....full text |
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