Already tagged this year’s KT Tunstall, the Glaswegian 19-year-old is fast becoming a festival favourite on the British circuit with a slew of appearances lined up. Not that she’s surprised at this – “Give me a festival and I’ll be a Glastonbury star,” she sings on the self-mythologising ‘Let’s Start A Band’. There’s confidence for ya!
To be fair, it’s not all that difficult to see why she’s caught on so massively. With her distinctive, pitch-perfect vocals and handy way with a rousing chorus, it’s appealing stuff (she was apparently inspired to pick up a guitar at 15 when she heard a Travis album). It’s all worked out for her so far, and the irresistibly catchy indie-pop single ‘Mr. Rock Roll’ has been picking up impressive airplay, as has the similarly-inclined title-track.
The rest of this expensive-sounding debut is pleasant enough, albeit in a passive, unchallenging way. ‘Youth Of Today’ is some kind of attempt at a spokeswoman-for-a-generation schtick that doesn’t quite work. ‘Barrowland Ballroom’ paints a picture of her hometown’s legendary venue while ‘LA’ – another surefire future single – is probably the best thing here. Strangely, she lashes out at a certain WAG figure on ‘Footballers’ Wife’: “She thinks she’s some kind of star, yes you know who you are – I don’t think” (Hmm, wonder who that could be, Wayne?)
Impressive on first listen, but less so after a while, you can’t help feeling that MacDonald needs to broaden her horizons if she’s to carve a lasting career out for herself.