Kate Nash | Made of Bricks

Kate Nash is -also- British. She sounds like a combination of Lily Allen, Regina Spektor, and a soft-pop songstress e.g. Catherine Feeny but with a cute accent. The album starts out easy pop, goes harder, goes back down to something gentle. More than anything, her songs are FUN and CATCHY. This is a perfect summer album.

Foundations is a perfect kick-off of the album, and Mouthwash is brilliant; it puts a smile on my face every single time. Kate's biggest talent is her ability to meld clever, catchy lyrics (listeners actually take notice of her lyrics, something that may be rare in today's pop music) with her unique, adorable voice. This is one of the few albums I can remember (with the exception of Lily Allen) in which I'll be listening to a song, and a lyric will make me chuckle or smile, because it's so damn ingenious.

Nash is a pretty gifted pianist, so that provides a substantial backing to the album, but it's not pretentious, it's used perfectly lightly in most of the songs...the other few songs primarily backed by light acoustic/electric guitar. It may take a few listens to really get on board: at first I thought it was a bit over-produced, and although it is undeniably poppy, the lyrics and her inventiveness in songwriting is what shines through after repeated listens.

I grew to like almost every song quite a bit. Highlights (other than "Foundations" and "Mouthwash") are the groovy "We Get On," the poignant rocker (not an oxymoron) "Skeleton Song," "Nicest Thing" (which provides a lush change of pace and might yield some tears if you're in a vulnerable state), and the wonderfully upbeat closer "Merry Happy" which has a 'down'-beat 7-minute-long hidden track at the end (from which the album's title and cover artwork seem to be from) that sold me on Kate Nash as a legitimate talent with a knack for making pop music that actually has something different to offer...and doesn't make us miserable, not even a little bit.*
*This is a reference to High Fidelity. If you haven't seen that movie, do.