Album Review: Lou Doillon - Places

For starters, there aren't enough military-like drum and slow handclaps in music that might otherwise be called folk or soft pop. So thanks, Lou Doillon, for the track One Day After Another – that combination is an untapped resource. Actually, most of Doillon's album can be considered in the 'untapped' category, as lots of press so far has discussed her place as a French model/famous person's pedigree daughter (offspring of actor/singer Jane Birkin and director Jacques Doillon). Of course, good genes and a stellar bone structure don't hurt, but this girl sounds great beyond that, a mixture of breathy but also with some brass in her voice, not afraid to give a bit of kick where necessary and genre bend a bit.

Let's celebrate that she's got a song called Defiant that features a piano accordion (defiant, indeed!), that she's happy to admit she's “real smart at fucking things up” (in closer, Real Smart) and that she manages to do a spoken word intro to the title track and be sultry rather than cheesy (high degree of difficulty there). Building that title track into a chant-like crescendo that Ani DiFranco would be proud of (although with a bit less raw anger and political crank), the result shows just the right amount of melodrama. There are some slower, more direct folk-like moments too (Same Old Game and I.C.U. particularly), but we're walking on just the right amount of genre convention and a nice little twist. Also an accomplished actor and performer, it's taken a while for Doillon to get out this English debut – let's hope there's more to come.