V V Brown – Travelling Like The Light

This is 24 year old V V Brown’s debut album,which she has stated that she’s waited 25 years to write and release.

There are twelve tracks on here,and V V sounds like an upbeat Joan Armatrading and dresses in her own individual style. She has drama,melody and joy in her songs, which crackle with newness. Just a hint of wackiness is added to them as well.

I liked Shark In The Water.Its a sit up and listen song,as well as being very singable. Leave is pretty powerful,soaked in emotional pain. V V’s love life took a mighty hard knock just before she wrote the album, thus firing up her creativity to give birth to it.

L.O.V.E. is a very fun,bouncy track,without a hint of sadness. I think it should be a second single, really.

Crying Blood is abrasive and painful,a shriek for help runs through this song.

V V has been musical since she was five years old.At school in later years she sang in the church gospel choir and there was always music in the family home.

She has had a struggle to make it artistically, only being able to afford to buy a one-string guitar on which she marked out the frets in red nail varnish… but she has managed to achieve her dream of fame at last.

Most of the songs on this album deal with the pain of unsuitable lovers. It is first and foremost a cathartic collection of songs.

V V Brown has her own distinctive image, but she could be in danger of becoming typecast in her theme.

She is a sophisticated version of Lily Allen, but in no way her clone. A very listenable album.