- Label
- 679 Recordings
- Release date
- 22nd February 2010
- Genre
- Pop
- Buy this album
- Order CD
New wave dramatics from pop’s new kooky lady.
Like Florence (+ The Machine) Welsh, Marina Diamandis is precocious, dramatic, owns a wardrobe over spilling with feather boas, employs an operatic delivery that could fell a horse and leads a band who don’t really exist. Fortunately both are so supremely talented and smart that it overrides the concerns the easily agitated may have about young ladies of a stagy bent.
Marina’s key song is I Am Not A Robot, a staccato new wave tune that recalls forgotten 80s singers such as Hazel O’Connor and the avant garde 70s pop of Sparks. Lyrically it does much to describe who she is — someone who’s not part of the crowd.
Feminism raises itself several times but interestingly it’s targets are both male and female. Girls mocks her calorie obsessed peers — “you stick to your yoghurts/I’ll stick to my apple pie.” Elsewhere Mowgli’s Road includes a fabulously unhinged cuckooing hook and the surreal suggestion that the Welsh-Greek 24-year-old is being haunted by some spoons.
The madness works when attached to a great chorus but when this vital rule is forgotten The Family Jewels sounds like someone barking along to a warped Eurythmics B-side. Fortunately those moments are in the minority.
More to try:
Florence + The Machine: Lungs
Kate Bush: The Kick Inside
Hazel O’Connor: Breaking Glass
Kate Nash: Made Of Bricks
