Diana Vickers - Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree

After speeding into the vanishing point with the pedestrian Manhattan Clique remix of Once, I thought I had experienced all I wanted to by Diana Vickers, but with its highly pretentious title Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree demands a chance as much as any. Diana Vickers went to squaky expense on the X-Factor to irritate thousands of facebook haters ('hate' in TV terms though, which makes it fair game to judge anyone let's be honest), but Once has entitled the young artist a cutting off point wherein a pop star has emerged, which compared to the success of Leona Lewis I think is quite remarkable. Yeah. Yeah? Okay, yeah then.

I love the idea of a singer just losing it and holding civillians at gunpoint to make them buy their single, but Once isn't even nearly about that. Clearly this girl doesn't like being finished off and sets her limit for a one-off special occaision. Judging by her ex-beau Eggnog I don't think his balls have dropped anyway - her number one rule seems to have paid off, however, as I appear to have been wrong and he has recently got some little skank up the duff. Awwww.

Her blunt-edge tongue pronounciation makes her diction impossible to understand without a lyric sheet, but Remake Me & You is a pleasantly simmering electro number with synths coming at you from more angles that even Dannii at one of her famous squirting orgies would be able to handle.

Similarly-titled and its verses similar-sounding, The Boy Who Murdered Love caves in and acquires a MOR taste for death disco. Varnished with an electronic gloss, it doesn't quite catch you off guard the same way Once did: she's going to get second-guessed if she ever tries to rob a bank, that's for sure. Oh yeah. Yeah? Okay, kill me then Diana. Ha, thought not.

Feeling numb and glum, when she sings so on Four Leaf Clover I actually thought she sang 'aww' for demonstration, but common sense tells me it was 'now' instead.

Lucky for us she's unlucky in love. Narina Pallot gives The Vickers the piano trembler Put It Back Together, which is the album's own Madonna's Promise To Try or even Linda Sundblad's Perfect Nobody - it's really lovely I promise. Swooping and moaning, she emotes like a goat going through puberty and yet it is album highlight number two.

Reminding me of Sara Jorge, You'll Never Get To Heaven is a rainbow-synthed pop gem. Adorable sounds and sick-of-it lyrics ignite together beautifully, Vickers wisks up the words with her inadvertantly effective deliberately-affected vocals. Three songs that I love is a big surprise for me.

The album's biggest dud has potential to grow on me, but right now Me & You sounds like a Mark Owen solo from Take That's Circus album.

Taught dance jolt My Hip is more tender and bruised defence mechanisms. Not only is she bruised and sore, but she's only got herself blind as well. The term 'attention seeker' comes to mind. We're at 4 good ones by the way.

These kids sure know how to spell, I think text-speak was all a myth. N.U.M.B is what Put It Back isn't - contrived and more forced than constipation. Even her Mother can't help despite her wishes.

Namesake prediction Hit doesn't disappoint. The DV electro formula keeps on giving. Although it lacks the forceful bulk that usually gets me attentive to dance music, flourishes are sprinkled when it counts. Backing vocals here and there, bleeps and bloops when there's gaps between the choruses. Of course 'this wasn't supposed to happen' isn't quite Bjork, but being a Sugarcubes cover I don't think most of her fans would even notice. Fans of the original are slating this, but praising Diana's bravery to go there - it's a good song, and worth not knowing the original for.

She does a good imitation of Imogen Heap on Notice, which is ultimately a precautious acoustic ballad with a drumbeat.

Because she sings like her, I wanted Jumping Into Rivers to be a Sinead O'Connor cover of Jump In The River (it even has gunshots and 'blood on the wall'!), but this is another effortless flutter in an album full of them. Dreamy techno folk-pop with genuine feelings of rejoice and spritual lilt. That yawny voice has found the perfect setting. I swear those whoo hoo hoos were lifted from Bohemian Like You, which I can only hope is Sigsworth's little joke.

To close this album, Chasing You had to be special and it really is. Still hate her? As she aptly sings herself, 'there's nothing else I can do, nothing I can say'. Immersed in tranquilized balladry emotions, both eerie and unnervingly calm. Her distinctive slur doesn't even ruin things, her quirky quaver avsolutely defines it.

Diana Vickers shoots herself with her deepthroating Sinead O'Connors bible vocals - emos hearing the vacuous evocation of exhibitionist 'deepness' will flock to it like flies to shit, but discerning collaborators turn the album into a real winner. Her affection is definately nails traveling down a blackboard for some, I thought including me, but Cherry Tree is one of 2010's biggest surprises. Guy Sigsworth, who produces the final three and mediocre number 2, seals the deal, but as long as she has expensive songs to squak over she could have a big career ahead of her. Tonsils removed and it is game over. She doesn't yell though, and I think that is the key even if she doesn't sing using one.