The Night The Sun Came Up

Dev probably gets this written about her all the time but I’ll go there anyway… she is cut from similar cloth to Ke$ha. But while Ke$ha and her sing-talk vocal style can be coarse to say the least, Dev’s debut album is made of slightly finer thread.
However, having said that, it is a tale of two halves. The first half of the album reveals Dev, the big girl from a small town fighting to make it into the big leagues – cue electro ballads and dubstep-infused hip-hop. From the outset, this small town girl reveals a more refined singing voice than Ke$ha and although AutoTune is used frequently, it is not overriding.
But when the whistle blows for the second half, we enter the domain of ‘Dev the dominatrix’ where any clothes and inhibitions are left outside the door. The songs begin to head down dark corridors towards steamy underground dancefloors like ‘Bass Down Low’ and ‘Kiss My Lips’. As the beats toughen up and the bass lines get harder, the lyrics also get more hardcore, cue the raunchy sax-filled ‘In The Dark’ with its eye-catching rhymes: “Open my body up and do some surgery/I’m only talking to you if you want to surf my seas”.

My diagnosis: I should have been a surgeon! But if you’re looking for a second opinion, Dev is a superior version of Ke$ha. Her sing-talk vocals are a match for her rival, while her singing is a definite upgrade.