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Duffy’s back. It’s taken two and a half years and a change in management, but a follow-up to the massively successful Rockferry is finally upon us. An album winning so many accolades, including being the top-seller of its year, is always going to be hard to beat, so I suppose we can cut her some slack on the whole "it’s the second album that makes or breaks ‘em" chestnut, but nonetheless, I am far from overwhelmed by Duffy’s latest offering.
Endlessly isn’t a bad album as such, so don’t take the rant I’m about to go off on too much to heart, but if it is one thing, it’s remarkably easy to slate. Album opener ‘My Boy’ is an agreeably poptastic starting point, even if the violin fills are a bit too 2000s Robbie Williams for my taste. It’s track two that sets the scene for me though. While endless comparisons were drawn a few years back between this new-found little Welsh flower and the great soul singers of bygone days, you won’t find too many similar voices on the radio nowadays, so you could say that amongst our various pop princesses, it is a ‘unique’ or ‘refreshing’ sound. That said, as ‘Too Hurt to Dance’ flows through its remarkably familiar sounding intro and you’re ready for Louis Armstrong to pipe out “I see trees of green…”, you realise the line between ‘unique’ and ‘mind-blowingly annoying’ can wear dangerously thin.
Later in the album, we have a three-pronged attack of similarly put together ballads, which admittedly are getting a little samey by this point. This occurs in the back half of the record, so you’ve about got used to this ‘uniqueness’ by now; the trouble is if you’re anything like me, not only are you getting bored senseless of it, you’re beginning to realise that it sounds alarmingly like one of those little fluffy creatures currently quite well camouflaged and freezing to death back in North Wales.
To be honest though, I am being grotesquely unfair. The lyrics aren’t entirely uninspired. In fact she’s so proud of a line in lead single ‘Well Well Well’; “Why are you giving me the third degree, I’m not guilty”, that she can’t stop repeating it over and over and over and over and over and, yeah, you’ve got the message. And over.
At least this song sounds a bit more like the shopping centre playlists and Heart FM beatified for a time after Rockferry though, along with another track called ‘Keeping my Baby’, after which, in all honesty, the album is a bit slow and screechy. Slow is fine. Slow can mean ballads of epic proportions and melodies that make your heart ache. But unfortunately, it’s only your ears doing that with this one.
If Rockferry set you on fire, Endlessly might just about break into the realms of tepid. Anyone else, your stones could very well remain rather cold with this one.
Like it? Try Adele, Gabriella Cilmi, Amy Winehouse and Paloma Faith
Endlessly – Out now – ★★☆☆☆
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