Nell Bryden - Second Time Around (157 Records)

That is until she discovered an antique painting in her parent's attic. One lucky auction and $300,000 later we have Second Time Around and Bryden's career rolls on.

You may already be having doubts about the quality of music that relies on a dust-crusted piece of canvas to keep it financially afloat. That's certainly the reaction many had when Nell's fortunate find hit the musical press. Over 350 shows across seven different nations and not a sniff of a record deal to show for it: some would see it as time to lock the guitar away with the painting in the attic. It hasn't put this budding songbird off though.

Let's not beat around the prickly country-pop bush: there's something unsettlingly sickly-sweet about some of this latest release. Second Time Around is a showcasing of tunes that stick dangerously close to standard song templates. It's catchy and it's charming but a lot of the time it's bland as bread, heaping one cliché on top of the other. Imagine a more instrumentally inclined, genre-varied, folk sniffing Christina Aguilera, without the multi-million pound RCA deal and without the voice.

From its opening you expect first track Tonight to be a classy Clare Teal style crooner. Unfortunately it descends into a loose jazzy swing that doesn't quite manage to capture the bourbon soaked night-life Bryden strives to depict. It's also uncertain what she's singing through. Sounds kind of like a megaphone that hasn't quite the bottle to...errr...sound like a megaphone. You'll know what I mean.

The title track stands as a funky shuffle complete with infectious bass; a tad more successful than its neighbours. Late Night Call is the kind of thing that would smoulder under the fingers of Jamie Cullum, but instrumental sections lack vibrancy and flair in the hands of Bryden's session musicians.

Where The Pavement Ends is such a bizarre concoction of styles that it deserves its own paragraph. Some kind of misguided Arabian-Eastern-European-Celtic-Country hybrid, you expect Borat to come bounding out of it at any moment. Sound interesting? Don't go there: you'd be safer snorting Sunny D and marmite off an ashtray.

But it would be unfair to focus only on the record's failings. Bryden has a firm hold on the genre during fourth track From Midnight On; a mellow, soulful triumph that ticks all the right boxes. Two tunes later and you have Only Life I Know. If Tracey Chapman were to meet Eva Cassidy on a Louisiana ranch it might sound something like this. Ok, something that good would get a Grammy. This won't, but it's a step in the right direction.

Second Time Around isn't a masterpiece and to brand Bryden as America's next big breakthrough artist would be going too far. That in mind this is by no means painful to listen to. Although disappointingly limited in range, Bryden's mid-pitched voice is undeniably pleasing. Her latest release is a perfectly adequate selection of cheerful, sunny songs that succeed in showing this off.

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