March 2, 2012
Alex Winston - 'King Con'
Too affected to be truly effecting
5 / 10
The curse of the ‘kooky’ moniker is to be feared. Take a female singer with a brunette barnet, a tingle in her voice and a literary sensibility, then watch those Kate Bush comparisons come flying out of the cliché cupboard.
Detroit Anglophile Winston is bound to be battered by those comparisons, but the truth is rather more prosaic on a debut that is strangely unmoving.The music clasps at the sprawling and elemental (there’s a post-Arcade Fire feel, thanks in part to collaborations with Lykke Li’s producer Björn Yttling) and her vocals have a Joanna Newsom tickle to them, but it feels too affected to be truly effecting.
Priya Elan
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