Jenny Hoyston - Isle Of

It's very difficult to see what Jenny Hoyston, former guitarist of Erase Errata, is going for on her debut album. One moment, she's a one woman Arcade Fire, as on opener Spell D-O-G. The next, she's a moody PJ Harvey, pissed off and pouting. And then there are the just plain mental tracks like Ruff… Ruff…/Rainbow City. Some people can pull off quirky, but Jenny Hoyston hasn't quite got it sorted. The clunky beats and screeches that pepper the album would sound fantastic on a Bjork record, but here, they sound almost naïve and just a little bit daft. When she strips back the kookiness, she gets great results, like Novelist. But, on the whole, Isle Of is the sound of someone trying too hard. There is clear potential here, and she is to be applauded for trying to do something a bit different, but this is less an experimental album, more a mish-mash of half-formed ideas. [Heather Crumley]