Polly Scattergood is a rare talent; a musician who can make the disturbing sound delightful. Built around the work of a delicate guitar and piano (she plays a stylophone and accordion too), and Scattergood's distinctive voice, she sounds something like Kate Bush meets Kate Nash on hard drugs. She's tender but at the same time could probably kick your butt and her songs lure you in by sounding fragile, but in all reality are sharper than a wall of razor blades. It's haunting stuff that's pretty darn good...in a psycho sort of way.
Her debut album Polly Scattergood is a rather spookyeffort that sounds like it almost has too much emotional baggage attached to it. It's a heavy album that will make your brain do somersaults and leave you thinking about every ex you've ever had. Polly has not written the feel good hit of the summer but rather a grim tale of relationships and emotions gone awry. Yet you get the sense in listening to Polly Scattergood that no matter how bad things might get for her, Miss Scattergood is going to come out on top.
Polly Scattergood is a really good record not only because Polly mixes up the folk template with just enough electronics to keep it quirky, but for the simple fact that her songs are creepy and cute at the same time. It's an interesting dichotomy simply because as much as you want to give her a hug and console her it's almost as if she's putting on this ruse to lead you to your doom. Spookiness never sounded so cool.
Not quite a singer songwriter and not quite a proper pop star, Polly Scattergood resides in a grey area between the two genres. I suspect that's just where she likes it and you can hear that in every song on Polly Scattergood. This record might not be the album of the summer, but when winter rolls back around, this will be the album you'll be breaking out to help get you through those long, cold, lonely months. So cherish Miss Scattergood because she's a dangerous treasure that's whose tales of woe will help see you through.
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