VV Brown: 'Travelling Like The Light'

'Shark In The Water' is clearly one of the pop songs of the summer, but what is VV Brown singing about? "It's anxiety. I guess I'm trying to create a new phrase," she explained to DS recently. "When something's not quite right or there's some kind of a problem, you might say, 'Maybe there's a shark in the water'." Given that the single in question stalled at number 38 on the charts last week, after neither of its predecessors managed to crack the top 75, one interpretation of what that "shark" might be is becoming increasingly difficult to shake off.

However, if Brown is feeling anxious about her future, it hasn't seeped into her music. Travelling Like The Light is an album of catchy, exuberant retro-pop whose best moments have all the fizz of a shaken up can of coke. Though Brown is prone to wearing her influences on her sleeve, even borrowing the bassline from 'Oh, Pretty Woman' for 'Quick Fix', this album crackles with so much unpredictable energy that it never comes across as mere pastiche. Then again, what sort of sixties retread would feature the Gameboy-like electro blips that pepper tracks like 'L.O.V.E.' and 'Crying Blood'?

As well as a collection of zesty retro-pop tunes, Travelling Like The Light is also a break-up record - one inspired by what Brown calls a "total catastrophe" of a relationship. The 25-year-old Northampon lass is a resilient sort though, giving herself a stiff talking to on 'Leave!', flicking a V-sign at her ex on 'Game Over', and offering a blunt ultimatum on 'Back In Time': "If you don't want me near, why don't you disappear?" However, in spite of everything she's been through, she's also a hopeless romantic, a trait that manifests itself when the album occasionally slips into mushiness.

Thankfully, this is a minor quibble on a debut that paints Brown as a talented songwriter, an inventive producer and a singer capable of everything from playful shrieks ('Quick Fix') to hushed, soulful intimacy ('I Love You'). She may be unlikely to join fellow newcomers La Roux and Florence & The Machine at the top of the charts, but there are enough good ideas here to keep that shark at bay for a while yet.


> Click here to read our recent interview with VV Brown