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DUFFY
Rockferry
(Mercury/Rough Trade)

(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- Someone with ears mentioned Duffy's name during SXSW, but long experience has taught me not to believe the hype from England (and James Hunter doesn't count). Or maybe there isn't any hype, and whoever it was I was talking to has especially good ears.

Duffy, in any event, is a comely young English Welsh woman with a fondness for 1960s orchestral pop. Mostly a recipe for disaster, but she's got it just about right. If there is a Petula Clark/Dusty Springfield divide, she falls closer to the Petula Clark side. But all nods to the past aside (and there are many on her self-titled debut), Duffy's voice is quite her own. And it's worth noting that she's co-written the ten songs on this slender, 37-minute album. Just the right length for the LPs from which Rockferry clearly draws inspiration.

And it is Duffy's voice which is the principal charm of her debut. It has a nice little rasp to it in the lower register (I am reminded of the Canadian singer Romi Mayes, though nobody else will make that jump), but as she slides effortlessly upward it becomes sweet and a tiny bit breathy. It is, in any event, a solid instrument over which she has substantial control, and which she uses quite tastefully.

The songs are mostly the kind of relationship fluff which fits neatly atop a string section (notably what I gather is the first single, "Warwick Avenue," which opens with what one hopes is a knowing nod toward "My Girl"; as "Hanging On Too Long" vaguely echoes "Smiling Faces"), and she's not above a drum machine ("Serious"). Set against a hollow-body guitar -- and nothing else -- on "Syrup & Honey" she acquits herself marvelously. No cheap tricks, careful technique, plenty of emotion. And it's as good a song as she offers in this set. Her New Orleans nod, "Mercy," swings along nicely, with a more nasal, sassier voice than she shares elsewhere. And a more knowing point of view. And a fabulous hook.

Like the 1960s albums Rockferry is meant to acknowledge, some of the songs are dross ("Delayed Devotion" and "Hanging On Too Long"; or maybe my dislike of Philly soul deafens my ears to its pleasures). And even the middling songs are carefully, freshly, lovingly executed.

The inevitable comparison is, I fear, to Amy Winehouse. Ms. Duffy has a better voice, and more to say. More room to grow. More likelihood of recording a second another album. I'm not a real aficionado of her reference points, but Duffy has a first-rate voice, and this is as good an album as I've heard this year.

-- GRANT ALDEN
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Grant Alden