Paloma Faith
Fall to Grace

In the crowded landscape of British pop, Paloma Faith has for several years now represented a truly unique case in the music market: she is indeed one of the very few artists whose great chart success is accompanied by musical and vocal qualities that are far from negligible. This success is due to the fact that the Hackney singer-songwriter is perfectly comfortable in front of cameras and under the spotlight, presenting herself exactly as she is: a charming, straightforward, and slightly eccentric young woman, yet intelligent and ironic, who likes to dress eccentrically without following trends too much and, above all, without forgetting to do what she does best, which is singing. And in "Fall to Grace," it is precisely Faith's voice that shines above all else: powerful, theatrical, and expressive, it is one of the best to have emerged in recent years and is capable of giving a cinematic aura to whatever she sings. This latter characteristic stands out prominently in this second album, where the more peculiar and eccentric ideas of the debut "Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?" (a pop-soul gem I recommend to anyone who has missed it) are abandoned in favor of a grandiose and at times somewhat overblown electronic sound, but nevertheless well executed and, thanks to Paloma's interpretative skills, achieves its own uniqueness, whether it's pulsating disco à la Donna Summer in tracks like "30 Minute Love Affair," "Freedom," and "Blood, Sweat and Tears," or in solemn soul power ballads such as "Picking Up the Pieces," "Agony," and "Black and Blue," which are contrasted by more intimate songs like "Streets of Glory" and "Just Be." The elements for this second album to be on par with the first, if not even superior, are all there. However, in the long run, "Fall to Grace" suffers from an underlying heaviness that keeps it from rising beyond the threshold of what is still a generous pass, mainly due to Paloma's choice to focus on almost exclusively romantic-themed songs and the production, which, although far from dismissive, suffers from being managed almost exclusively by Nellee Hooper, resulting at times in monotony and flatness. Despite this, Faith's second studio effort, while not reaching the heights of her debut, can overall be considered successful since with this album she confirms herself as a talented writer and performer, avoiding, among other things, repetition by venturing into different genres and sounds from those she had previously explored, although there is a bit of disappointment for an album that, as it was conceived, certainly had much greater potential than expressed.