Duffy: Rockferry

There's a big, bouffanted shadow looming over

Aimee Duffy's debut album, but it would be reductive to write off the Welsh

songstress as the second coming of Amy Winehouse. (Though that certainly hasn't

stopped anyone.) There are obvious similarities: Each traffics in highly

polished neo-soul and maintains a calculated retro-chic aesthetic, and the

"yeah yeah yeah" hook of Rockferry's ultra-catchy single, "Mercy," echoes the

ubiquitous chorus of "Rehab" a bit too closely. But where Winehouse's boozy

growl conjures up smoky corners and regret, Duffy's world-weary voice radiates

a cool remoteness that proves just as affecting. That ice-queen intrigue adds a

certain cachet to the 23-year-old's occasionally overstudied lyrics. But the

real joy of Duffy's best songs (especially "Stepping Stone" and "Warwick

Avenue") isn't in her words, but in the interplay between her vocals and the slow-burning

arrangements that hearken back to the best moments of Motown. Crooning over

sparse, noir-y piano lines one moment, then belting over soaring strings the

next, Duffy's voice creates an almost eerie sense of isolation, as if her

universal laments on love and loss are a secret known only to her.