Search - Vv Brown :: Travelling Like the Light

Catchy, savoury and exuberant. It is a good first effort.

Jazz for the dappers | 08/03/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Vanessa Brown has been tipped for big things this year and her debut album "Travelling Like the Light" is the perfect introduction to her sound.

The tall, gorgeous, retro-styled black Londoner is a throwback chanteuse jostling for position in the wake of Amy Winehouse and Duffy.

She has an appealingly old-school quirkiness.

Her confident mash up of Fifties doo-wop and girl group styles with modern pop and indie attitude conjures up a hugely colourful, almost Eighties-flavoured novelty exuberance.

The album offers up some fine moments and paints Brown as a talented songwriter, an inventive producer and a singer capable of everything from playful shrieks (the album's opener and old school R&B number "Quick Fix") to hushed, soulful intimacy ("I Love You"), and "Leave", a delicious pop pastiche that you could well imagine The Pipettes performing.

It is a bright, bold and often likeable affair, covering the retro spectrum from soulful love ballads to finger-popping rockabilly jives, as if judiciously ticking off a checklist of bygone styles to pastiche.

It's a bit urban, a bit poppy and a bit soulful. This means though, it lacks the heart that Winehouse herself delivers on Back to Black.

The catchy single "Shark in the Water" has a rocky edge but shows signs of having been processed for mainstream ears, while "Crying Blood", whose title belies its charming retro-pop nature, has been massively over-tweaked.

Overall, it is a good first effort, Vanessa can consider herself proud as she has the lungs to keep you away from pushing the stop button, though you can't ignore her record's shortcomings, the material is trying to please too many people and overproduction is a recurring problem.

Still, there's a lot to enjoy in Vanessa Brown's debut.

With this album, VV Brown proves that it's not just her hairstyle that stands out.

The woman's got talent!

We Are the Pipettes"

Back to the future!

Nse Ette | Lagos, Nigeria | 07/21/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Vanessa Brown is striking 6" tall model and UK soul-stress VV Brown and "Travelling like the light" is her debut CD. Despite having worked with acts like Pussycat Dolls and Sugababes, her sound is a strong throwback to Fifties/Sixties girl groups like The Shangri-Las, Shirelles, etc, think Macy Gray meets Amy Winehouse. Loads of harmonies, shimmery guitars, horns, and swinging songs.



Opening cut "Quick fix" is a slice of shimmery swinging Pop with drum rolls at intervals, squiggly electronic effects, and an almost Rapped bridge which works very well. "Game over" is more contemporary sounding R&B but still with a retro-Soul edge (and sung in her lower register), while single "Crying blood" is Rockabilly-tinged Do Wop in her best Macy Gray drawl.



Much of the lyrics are about falling in love, or out of love, and every song is superb, from the shimmery "Leave" (in which she gives her man the heave-ho, it appears he's in love with another chap), the lilting string-speckled "Bottles", "L.O.V.E." (Sixties Rock & Roll), the swinging and irresistible Big Band Jazz-meets-Pop "Everybody" (a call for unity among our diversity with nice ringing tambourine, claps, and drumrolls), and the jangly "Shark in the water".



For ballads, there's the melodramatic "Back in time", the piano driven Jazzy "I love you" (her phrasing here reminiscent of Lauryn Hill's, and a corny chorus of "I love you you you.."), "Crazy amusing" (a truly beautiful sing-along with its tune nicked from the 1938 classic "Heart & soul"), and title track the heartfelt "Travelling at the speed of light" (truly gorgeous sounding piano ballad with hushed harmonies, you could imagine this being used in some slow dance scene in the movie "Grease").



VV Brown is an artist that refuses to be pigeonholed (shunning R&B, Rihanna or Beyoncé-style) and with a debut this striking, I'm sure she'll be around for a long time."

Simply Amazing!

S. Reed | CA United States | 08/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first learned of V.V. Brown from a blog post and I've been waiting for months for the album to become available. I finally got it and it is A-MA-ZING!!!! Every song is a hit, and it's been a long time since I've bought an album where I liked EVERY song, let alone the majority of them. My absolute favorites are Leave!, Crying Blood, Back in Time, and Everybody. Britain has been producing the best music for a while now, and for those who can't get enough of classic soul/doo-wop music and the likes of newer artists such as Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Adele, and Daniel Merriweather will appreciate this new amazing artist!"