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Thanks to the likes of Winehouse and Ronson, sixties musical stylings have been making something of a comeback in the last year. Now with the huge hype surrounding this Welsh songstress and her single ‘Mercy’, the soul scene looks set for a full-scale revival. Part atavistic tosh, part pop genius, ‘Mercy’ is a particle of retro-revivalist wonder that will have dance floors smouldering underfoot just as the fiery-soled dancers in her video demonstrate. If you can wade through the hyped-up comparisons to Winehouse and, even more ostentatiously, Dusty Springfield (neither of which bear more than a passing vocal resemblance to Duffy), you’ll find a rather attractive platinum-blonde star-in-the-making with a startlingly unique voice, one that overshadows comparison.
It is this vocal talent that illuminates what is essentially a rather run-of-the-mill pop track about a boy beyond the reaches of the already-taken Duffy. From the cheerfully repetitive ‘yeah, yeah yeahs’ at the opening to the quaint piped-organ backing, Mercy is a snippet of seamless soul production straight out of the provincial windpipes of an impressive new vocal talent.
Released 25/02/08 on Universal.
