Album: Paloma Faith - 'Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?'

It's impossible to not compare vintage-loving fashionista singer Paloma Faith to Amy Winehouse. It's not lazy - it's inevitable. With the soulful nasal tones, this fellow Londoner has been pipped to the post with her neo-soul sound, but is there yet a place for her debut album?

Sounding like Pixie Lott scrapping in a lift with Wino before getting a serious makeover by Girls Aloud and Dita von Teese, Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful? is highly produced and engineered for chart success at all costs. The energy and marketing cash thrown at an artist or band can be judged as much on their image as on their music, and when it comes to Paloma, there's no chance of a shot of her sucking ice lollies in her bra at 4AM coming to light.

So, on to the music. Smoke and Mirrors sounds like a mediocre Sugababes album track, and as for first single Stone Cold Sober, well it's enough to drive you to drink after more than three listens. Drum machines instead of the real things on New York are a shame, but Play On has an understated pomp that's deceptively catchy.

There's also a worrying element of Duffy-ism here - in tracks like Broken Doll, the lyrics are agonizingly awkward and the ballad style doesn't suit Ms Faith well.

So although Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful? is twee in places and nowhere near as kitch as it aims to be, it's the half-Spanish Faith's extra-musical activities that are really exciting. When you realise she's an actress (she appears in the upcoming The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus), a burlesque dancer and a trained theatre director, it all becomes clear that music may be little more than a hobby for her.

In this context, it's hard to pour scorn on her. Faith seems like the kind of broad who'd let you borrow her lippie and buy you a Babycham while sharing the karaoke mic. That might be a lot of conjecture off the back of 45 minutes of album, but there's a definite sense of raucous (albeit highly polished) fun about this record. Let's just hope she doesn't start making Diet Coke ads any time soon.

Paloma Faith is touring the UK in October - check out dates at www.myspace.com/palomafaith

Buy Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful? on CD from Amazon for around £8 or download it for £7.99 from 7digital.