CD Reviews

Kate Walsh

Tim's House | Verve Forecast

By MIKAEL WOOD | January 28, 2008

2.5 Stars

This young Brighton-based singer-songwriter isn’t Kate Nash, the ascendant heir to Lily Allen’s sass-pop throne, and neither is she the American Grey’s Anatomy star with whom she shares a name. So who is Kate Walsh? A sensitive soul with a broken heart and an acoustic guitar — no chance of confusing her with anyone else, right!? To be sure, the strength of Walsh’s sophomore set does not lie in stunning originality: out since last summer in the UK, where it burned up download charts after the then-unsigned singer submitted “Talk of the Town” to iTunes, the album offers the same brand of pretty sad-girl melancholy that Starbucks customers have been swimming in since Norah Jones’s breakout five years ago. What makes Tim’s House worth hearing is the particularly guileless quality of Walsh’s voice. If you thought Markéta Irglová sounded like an open book in Once, get a load of the way Walsh lays bare the disappointment that sets in after the drama of any break-up dies.

Related: Going on sale: April 4, 2008, Colbie Caillat, The long view, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Norah Jones, Kate Nash, Kate Walsh, More

| More

ARTICLES BY MIKAEL WOOD

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS | FURTHER | July 07, 2010
Astralwerks (2010)

DEVO | SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY | July 01, 2010
Given the theory of de-evolution these Ohio brainiacs began expounding more than 30 years ago, it makes a sad kind of sense that Devo's first album since 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps offers such a charmless, base-level version of the band's synth-addled new wave.

TAIO CRUZ | ROKSTARR | June 24, 2010
When Taio Cruz sings, "I can't live without you," in "Take Me Back," pop-song conventions tell us he's referring to a lover.

THE FUTUREHEADS | THE CHAOS | June 16, 2010
"I wish that I could stop the noise," sings Barry Hyde not long into The Chaos . It sure doesn't seem that way.

BETTYE LAVETTE | INTERPRETATIONS: THE BRITISH ROCK SONGBOOK | June 01, 2010
Bettye LaVette’s previous two albums had titles that required a little digging to unpack.