Unique Name... Not Unique Music (Hands - Little Boots)

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	Hands - Little Boots
Date:	30/09/09 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funky & Modern.

Disadvantages: A Few Weak Tracks.

If you've read any of my reviews on music before then you'll probably have realised that my musical taste is quite varied and that I don't tend to listen to just one genre of music but prefer to keep a mixture on my ipod. One of my latest acquisitions is an album by someone called Little Boots entitled Hands. Now you may well be thinking that firstly the artist has a bizarre name and that secondly the album also has a rather odd name too. After hearing a couple of her songs on the radio I decided to have a look into her album and in doing so discovered that her name is actually Victoria Hesketh and she just uses Little Boots as her screen name... as we all do! She's a twenty five year old from Blackpool in the UK and nine years ago she actually featured on Pop Idol before being eliminated. Since then she's been touring as part of a jazz trio, been part of an indie pop group and most recently released a solo album entitled Hands in June 2009.

Her sound is quite unusual in that it doesn't fit strictly into any one category, not that much music seems to anymore really these days. There is quite a lot of indie and pop influence in many of her songs which is obviously linked to her past but there does seem to be relatively little jazz featuring on this album so please don't buy it expecting to hear jazz! There is also a distinct electro pop feel to her album as well as a dance vibe too. It's quite a varied album in that if you like your pop music to be fairly un-cheesy then this would probably satisfy you and the general feeling is quite an upbeat one so once again, please don't buy it expecting to hear slow ballads. To sum it up succinctly I'd say it's electro pop with dance influences penetrating many of the songs... yes I know this still seems quite a vague description for a music album! There are twelve tracks on the Hands album varying in length from three minutes up to four and a half minutes.

"New In Town" is the opening track on the album which reached position thirteen in the UK chart. It's quite an upbeat pop song with a distinct electro feel to it. It's fairly fast moving and feels a little like an up-tempo track by Kylie Minogue or the Sugababes, it's got that same infectious pop feel that makes you want to sing along. Once you get to the chorus you'll be sure to recognise it if you tend to listen to commercial radio stations. This is followed by "Earthquake" and "Stuck on Repeat" which really echo the feel of the previous song along the former of the two has almost a dance rave feel to it and I'm sure before long it will be on the club scene. Despite the strong dance club influences there's quite a pure feel to these songs too suggesting innocence and a secret softness too which sadly isn't really displayed on this album. There's a strong electro influence to the latter of the two songs which made me think of Lady GaGa's music too.

"Click" is a little more sedate than the previous tracks in terms of volume although there's the same persistent electro beat underneath the track throughout while her voice remains a little softer. This song is a little bit hit and miss for me, after the strong album opening it was a bit of a dampener to be honest but thankfully the next track "Remedy" managed to rescue it quite quickly. This one is her latest single and reached position six in the UK chart and is a really infectious pop dance track that I can see being played in bars and clubs in no time at all. There's a really modern feel to it and again Sugababes came to my mind when I heard this but somehow she manages to modernise their sound even taking it into the future by making it sound much crisper and fresher at the same time. This is an excellent track and is one of my favourites on the album; I can't help but sing along to the catchy and quick chorus that has me dancing away!

"Meddle" has a very slight jazz feel to the opening which is obviously where her background shines through ever so slightly but this soon disappears, somewhat sadly I think. There's very much a Shakira feel to this track, it's quick and seductive with a great dance beat running underneath it throughout. Again it's not one that really sticks in my mind and I do tend to skip it to bring me onto "Ghost" and "Mathematics" which to me suggest the album is starting to run out of steam after its very positive start. They're fair tracks in that they're catchy and her voice sounds good but there just doesn't seem to be any substance to them and they're almost irritating with their strong electro feel. "Symmetry" which is a strangely haunting track, although it retains the same feel of the rest of the album her voice is displayed much better in this track and seems to showcase more of her talents here, it's a good track that is just a tiny bit more mellow.

"Tune Into My Heart" does attempt to revitalise the album a little with a distinct electro pop feel to it, yet it's quite a soft track and this is the most mellow track you'll get on this album. This track does touch on the cheesy pop a little towards the chorus which is reminiscent of bands such as S Club 7 with chorus lyrics of "remember to tune into my heart, wherever you are, no frequency stops when we're apart, I know it's hard when things get dark." S Club 7 would be proud! "Hearts Collide" seems to continue with the same mellow feel of the previous track but much less effectively, instead the chorus just sounds distinctively eerie. "No Brakes" just serves to kill the album and any positive feel that was built up in the previous tracks seem to be lost. That same electro beat runs throughout this track and rather than energise me it just serves to irritate me and very often I have to turn this track off as it all just seem a bit pointless really.

So what do I think of this album? Well the first half of it has some really catchy tracks that I do quite like, then there's a few okay tracks towards the middle which end abruptly when we reach track number ten "Tune Into My Heart." The last two tracks show the album really has run out of steam and I almost feel it would have been better if she'd just done a ten track album. The refreshing element of this album is that the music did feel new and not just something repackaged and re-sung that's already been done by every other girl band or female singer out there. Instead it felt crisp, fresh and quite raw which was good. The songs don't dwell on love and lost love, instead they refer to a variety of situations and due to the fairly upbeat nature of the majority of the album there doesn't seem to be many soul searching tracks centred on love and unrequited love on here. I must say that the one attempt at cheesy pop lyrics is a great success!

I always judge an album on how many of the tracks I tend to skip and on this album I'd say I skip about four or five of the tracks so around a third of them. It's not the best album that's on my ipod, in fact it's probably quite far from it as I can only listen to this if I'm feeling in a good mood and upbeat... if I'm shattered than this stays off my play list as I'd just get irritated. I'm going to give this album three out of five stars which does seem lower than what other people have done here on DooYoo, maybe it's just not my cup of tea but everyone's entitled to an opinion. I'll keep it on my ipod... but only until something better comes up. Oh and I almost forgot to mention my only other problem with this artist... now it's a bit of a petty one but nevertheless it's a problem, you may have noticed that throughout this review I've avoided referring to her by name as I just don't know if to call her Little Boots or Victoria Hesketh. Pop stars these days hey?

Thanks for reading.

Summary: The first album release from Blackpool born Little Boots.