Scout Niblett - This Fool Can Die Now Album Review

Scout Niblett
This Fool Can Die Now
Album Review

In a world swamped with pithy singer-songwriters, flogging the dead horse that is the love song, Scout Niblett is a breath of fresh air. Laced with sugar and lethal toxins, obviously. Like Cat Power's early material, 'This Fool Can Die Now' sits just the right side of the fence that divides individuality and musical accomplishment. Which isn't to say that she, or any of her accompanying musicians can't play / sing / whatever. The Concept is Queen, here, though, and usually manifests itself in an array of gripping and unusual lyrics. Well, 'unusual', if you want to sit her in a room with KT Tunstall or Kate Nash and do a contrast and compare exercise.

There's a warmth and humour here that softens the blow of songs like 'Do You Wanna Be Buried With My People'. 'Dinosaur Egg', contains the lyric "Dinosaur Egg, when will you hatch? 'Cos I got a million people coming on Friday who expect to see a dinosaur, not an egg" which is so gorgeously absurd, I may go find an egg to sing it to.

She yelps and howls, unreservedly, un-self-consciously: womanly and wild. Parallels drawn with Kurt Cobain are deserved, if a little unnerving. Entire songs riff around a single lyric and chord change, emotions are drawn out in the most simplistic of manners. 'This Fool Can Die Now' is a laidback and charming affair and the presence of the likes of Bonnie Prince Billy on vocal duties lift it from any potential doldrums it occasionally threatens to dwell in.

Hayley Avron