Renditions

Album Review

Previously best known for her roles in the BBC adaptation of Lorna Doone and horror flicks Gone and The Echo, Liverpool born actress Amelia Warner's fledgling music career received an early boost when her stripped-back interpretation of the Smiths' "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" was chosen as the soundtrack to the much talked-about John Lewis Christmas TV ad campaign. Recorded under the guise of "Slow Moving Millie," her debut album, Renditions, builds further on this formula, with eight covers of her favorite '80s songs (alongside two original compositions), largely performed in an intimate style akin to a more Radio 2-friendly version of Nouvelle Vague. On the whole, it's an approach that works. The SAW-produced pure bubblegum pop of Bananarama's "Love in the First Degree" is transformed into a melancholic torch song underpinned by mournful strings; Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" is treated to a similarly ghostly production as Gary Jules' reworking of "Mad World," while Warner's fragile, folky tones shine on the simplistic but haunting arrangement of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "The Power of Love." The Spector-ish Wall of Sound on "Hold Me Now" (the Thompson Twins) and the angular indie pop of "Feels Like Heaven" (Fiction Factory) prove she's no one-trick pony, although a vaudeville retooling of Yazoo's "Only You" is hopelessly misjudged. However, the self-penned celestial balladry of "Beasts" and the hushed atmospherics of "Hart with a Crown & Chain" suggests that the first album proper she's recording with Florence + the Machine producer Charlie Hugall is more likely to pursue her more familiar back-to-basics direction. Despite appearances in the odd big-budget flick, Warner has failed to break through to the acting A-list, but Renditions shows enough potential to suggest Hollywood's loss is the music industry's gain. ~ Jon O'Brien, Rovi