Paloma Faith - Fall To Grace Review

Discussing the song '30 Minute Love Affair' on her new album, Paloma Faith admitted that it was based on a fleeting moment with a homeless London busker when she was a teen. It's this kind of quirkiness that has so far divided public opinion on the singer, leading to some labelling 2009's Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? nothing more than another contrived '60s throwback-soul record.

There's no such worry on Fall To Grace which, at times, feels astonishingly honest. A shining example is lead single 'Picking Up The Pieces', an epic song about relationship neuroses that feels worthy of its own Adele moment. Producer Nellee Hooper (Madonna, Bjork) and Jake Gosling (Ed Sheeran) remain at the helm throughout, creating sumptuous melodies on ballads 'Black & Blue' and 'Just Be' that are packed to the brim with old glamour....full text Produced by Nellee Hooper and Jake Gosling, and co-written by Faith with some familiar names, this a big pop album full of big poppy hooks.

There's such a belt-and-braces approach that the array of sounds (strings, choirs, tubular bells, beats and synths, dubby blurbs and squeaks) can come across as overbearing, while Faith's moody vocals are mannered by design. But the biggest and best numbers - "Picking Up the Pieces", "Blood, Sweat & Tears"- achieve real grandeur....full text When Hackney's Paloma Faith was preparing to follow up her platinum-selling debut album, 2009's Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?, she reread Milan Kundera's Immortality, declaring it a big influence on her songwriting. Perhaps its themes of art and death are behind lyrics such as Black and Blue's "I know people who use chatrooms as confessionals/ I know down and outs who once… once they were professionals". Then again, she might have randomly cut and pasted a couple of headlines from the Daily Mail website. Her second album is littered with such pseudo-profundities, and the music – lots of nondescript ballads, a splash of contemporary disco – is no less banal....full text Paloma Faith makes a great pop star: sharp as a hatpin, mouthy enough to reprimand The Voice after her "realistic" comments were reportedly cut from a recent guest spot, and no stranger to the dressing-up box (check out this album's cover).
Her 2009 debut, Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?, was a respectable success, spawning a couple of top 20 hits and slowly going platinum. But this follow-up should make her a singer who doesn't need a surname: "Did you see what Paloma was wearing on telly last night?"
Faith's savvy and ambition show in her choice of collaborators. Fall to Grace is co-produced by Jake Gosling, fresh from success with Ed Sheeran, and Nellee Hooper, a class act who's worked with everyone from Björk to Madonna. Faith calls the latter an "interpreter" of her musical ideas; the pair would discuss her songs in relation to scenes or images from films and Hooper would translate these ideas into soundscapes....full text