Emmy The Great - First Love

Self-funded, self-recorded and self-released, there’s no denying the substantial D.I.Y. credentials at play throughout this debut long-play collection from folk songstress Emmy The Great and her backing players.

What ‘First Love’ lacks, though, is a bite, something to sink in deeper than these pleasant but slight songs that flutter their eyes flirtatiously without ever leaning in for the pay-off. Where Laura Marling – the artist one can draw the closest possible parallel with – paints her arrangements in deep, dark oils, Emmy chooses watercolours; just as Marling’s songs can tap into eerie veins of otherworldliness, Emmy and company keep focused on the everyday realities that surround them.

Which serves her well enough – tracks like ‘We Almost Had A Baby’ and ‘Dylan’ are straight narratives decorated with skipping percussion and traditional folk overtones sure to appeal to old-timers wondering what happened to one of the nation’s great musical movements. The title track borrows from Leonard Cohen, and the two-part ‘The Easter Parade’ uncommonly gorgeous, but despite a smattering of interesting touchstones it’s rare that ‘First Love’ fully engages – it sinks too easily into the background.

But perhaps I’m not listening in the right context. If so, what is the right time to sit with material such as this? As the dusk descends, or while stirring with the first birdsong of a new day? Its spare nature will suit the taste of individuals with time to burn on digesting delicate offerings, but to a man with a clock-watching twitch ‘First Love’ is simply too cautious, too uncommitted to showcasing its protagonist’s talents as brightly as it could.

Emmy’s voice throughout charms – it’s the one constant that ensures one visits these thirteen tracks more than once – but without a punch or two more in the arrangement stakes this LP serves more of a hint of what’s to come than a statement of an already arrived artist. It is the sketch, perhaps, of a greater work yet to be; literally a quickly executed affair in advance of a grander, more-detailed piece. If that’s the aim, it’s a success, as if you just raised each aspect of Emmy’s repertoire that tiny notch, great things could come her way.

But if ‘First Love’ is meant as a “here I am, industry, come and get me” offering, then it’s not properly enunciating its intentions. Hopefully it’s the beginning of something brilliant, rather than the culmination of creativity reaching a plateau.