Woodpecker Wooliams // The Bird School of Being Human

Let’s cut to the chase, this is an annoying album, complete with lyrics about Facebook and one of those irritating, weakly ‘sweet’ voices that TV adverts seem to love so much. According to the press sheet that came with this CD, Woodpecker Wooliams, aka singer-songwriter Gemma Williams ‘quickly became bored of the saccharine, twee folky sound her music was falling into and in textbook rebellious fashion, found herself moving towards “mental, horrible, distorted noise”.’ Well, she must have a different understanding of noise to the rest of us, because this is about as saccharine and twee as it comes. Sure there’s some ‘noise’ occasionally dropped low into the mix, but certainly not enough to counter the use of harp and omnichord amongst other twee staples.

Oh and apparently each of the songs ‘came via a bird that had a story to tell’. Forgive me if I seem a little cynical towards it, but the whole thing comes across as incredibly trite and trying to be something quirky and different but without really having the conviction to pull it off. If you want a genuinely quirky singer songwriter, go and check out Scout Niblett and leave this one on the shelf.

4/10 BBV