Alessi's Ark - Over The Hill [Single]

Virgin/ EMI Records

The animals may well have gone in two by two, but currently female singer-songwriters seem to be arriving en-mass. 18 year old Alessi Laurent-Marke from West London is the latest in a steady stream of such songbirds, poached from the pages of Myspace.

Her debut album, the twee-as-fook entitled ‘Notes from the Tree House’, is being produced by Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes, but it’s their fellow Saddle Creekers Rilo Kiley whom ‘Over The Hill’ bring to mind. Vocally though she has a rather distinct style; a voice that would be more than capable of impressing with its naked beauty, without adding some rather annoying and frustrating little touches to the end of her lines. On first listen it’s not easy to tell if this is an effect she is performing herself, but realising she is just makes it harder to take.

‘Over The Hill’ is certainly a pleasant enough track and belies Alessi’s tender age but it does suffer from a lack of any real direction, it just kind of meanders along, never finding the chorus its verse cried out for. The girl has definitely got something though, as the track bewitches you to return to its charms time and time again, and each time you can’t help but feel that this would not be the case in anyone else’s hands.

Alessi’s Ark certainly has the potential to deliver on the expectations placed on her (the new Laura Marling seems to be the favourite), you just hope Virgin Records allow her the room to grow naturally before she really is over the hill too soon.