Album: Candie Payne

Candie Payne is a veteran of several lower-league Liverpool bands. Her debut album arrives via a hook-up with Simon Dine, the producer behind the trip-hop of Noonday Underground. On I Wish I Could Have Loved You More, he applies his sample-based arrangements to her Mari Wilson-style vocals, creating backdrops ranging from the Spector-esque wall of sound of "One More Chance", all deep, burring horns and dramatic drums, to the subdued "Jean Genie" stomp of "Hey Goodbye", and the soundtrack trumpet stylings of "Why Should I Settle For You?", which sounds like Portishead fronted by a pop singer rather than Beth Gibbons. That's part of the problem here: there's nothing about Candie's voice that suggests that she's emotionally connected in any way to these songs; even the ones where she's supposed to be distraught, she seems to manage with ease. At the other extreme, the melody of a song like "In The Morning" gets lost amid the welter of samples.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'I Wish I Could Have Loved You More', 'Why Should I Settle For You?'