Stephanie Kirkham - Tiny Spark
3/10
I'd harboured such high hopes for this album, almost like looking forward to a reunion with a recently traced old friend. I'd bought Stephanie's debut album That Girl back in 2003, playing it to death for about a year without really knowing anything about the singer. One track, the hauntingly beautiful Never In a Million Years is still on my iPod to this day.
The review copy of Tiny Spark came craftily wrapped with tissue paper, raffia and an artificial flower, adding to the anticipation. Unfortunately, in music as in life, disappointment often awaits around the next corner. Far from being another collection of deeply sensitive and confessional love songs Tiny Spark is a nauseating confection of nursery rhyme and false gaiety that may cause an ad-man to cream his pants with joy (one track, Easy as 1-2-3, has already been used on three different TV commercials), but music lovers raised on the real poetry of the likes of Sandy Denny and Kirsty MacColl will remain distinctly unmoved by such ukelele-laden ditties. Lines like 'Kiss me quick, before my ice cream melts' may well slot easily into the next Google TV campaign, but have me reaching for the sick bucket.
So disappointed, but do check out that 2003 debut.
3/10
