Album reviews: Olivia Rodrigo | Myles Smith | Lizzo | Laura Marling

Olivia Rodrigo: You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love (Geffen Records) ★★★

Myles Smith: My Mess, My Heart, My Life (RCA Records) ★★

Lizzo: Bitch (Atlantic Records) ★★★★

Laura Marling: Laura Sings Raffi (More Alarming Records) ★★★

Olivia Rodrigo is her own hard act to follow. Her second album, the gutsy Guts, thrummed with energy, sardonic attitude and satirical lyrics (and a few blah bleeding heart ballads). She returns, following the end of a giddy love affair, rocking her best Lana Del Rey album title (well, if Lana won’t oblige…) to capture the agony and ecstasy of romantic relationships.

First, the ecstasy. Despite some pretty vocals and an unexpected injection of woozy strings, Drop Dead is a touch too Taylor Swift to stand out. Swift’s trendy lyrical namecheck was the Blue Nile, Rodrigo’s hip reference is The Cure (“you know all the words to Just Like Heaven”). No sign of Paul Buchanan anywhere near the Eras tour, but Cure frontman Robert Smith sang with Rodrigo during her Glastonbury headline set last year and he guests here on What’s Wrong With Me, an oddly calming supporting presence on an angsty number. Rodrigo also knowingly released a song called The Cure on World Goth Day and the breezy, likeable, chiming pop of u + me = <3 is clearly influenced by Smith’s lighter moments.

Goth-adjacent cred aside, her third album is strictly pop business, ranging confidently from the fuzzy guitar and breathless momentum of Stupid Song via the cutesy string-laden reverie of Honeybee and pouty Purple to gossamer ballad Begged. As accomplished as these are, it is Rodrigo’s upbeat numbers which mark her out from the sad girl crowd. My Way is storming New Wave meets electro pop, while Expectations fizzes with good energy, layering up vocals to uplifting effect.

There is also an album track called Maggots For Brains. Could Rodrigo be channelling George Clinton too? Now that would make a more interesting proposition for album number four.

Brits Rising Star Award winner (2025) Myles Smith is bewilderingly boring but undeniably popular, with a handful of ubiquitous radio hits under his belt. His debut album My Mess, My Heart, My Life is loosely themed round those three elements - the old storming, performing, norming framework - but in reality is just a conveyor belt of middle-of-the-road pop platitudes, from the mawkish Grandma’s House to the breakthrough blandness of Stargazing.

There is a dormant soul singer there, but Smith squanders the dulcet opening of Dying Day in favour of epic vacuity. He digs in on moderately rocking acoustic guitar on Stay (If You Wanna Dance) before succumbing to a popcorn chorus. Nice to Meet You is a throwaway Ed Sheeran-like jam with cod Celtic embellishments and One Direction’s nice Niall Horan pops up to to seal the mediocrity.

Singer/rapper/flautist Lizzo comes out swinging on new album Bitch with A Toast “to the one who hurt me most”. She reclaims the slur, referencing the Meredith Brooks song of the same name on the classy R&B title track, but there is barely time to take stock as she helms a wild, eclectic ride in just over half an hour, offering peppy soul funk in the Pharrell style (the tracks Happy 2 Be and Goodmorning!), covering D.C. go-go band UCB on Sexy Ladies and delivering a luxurious 80s AOR pastiche (with bonus key change) on Don’t Make Me Love U, a tasty melange of Tina Turner’s The Best and Joe Jackson’s Steppin’ Out.

READ MORE: The Scotsman Sessions #433: Dylan John Thomas

In her quest to find “tolerable children’s music”, Laura Marling has recorded a placeholder album of campfire folk songs by veteran Armenian-Canadian singer/songwriter Raffi. There are numerous whimsical evocations of the animal kingdom - the charming, harmonizing Baby Beluga, Peter Seeger wit of Willoughby Wallaby and Tom Paxton’s Going to the Zoo. One Light, One Sun is poignant no matter what your age, while Listen to the Horses would not be out of place among Marling’s own superior canon.

CLASSICAL

House of Wonder: Sally Beamish at 70 (Delphian) ★★★★★

It seems only yesterday that Sally Beamish quit as principal viola of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to pursue a career as a successful composer. That was over 30 years ago. Now 70, she’s released a very personal album “with friends and family” celebrating the milestone. Her own music and viola playing feature prominently. Accordionist Ryan Corbett joins her in April, an exquisite tribute to the late jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr, while trumpeter Imogen Whitehead and pianist Joseph Havlat feature in Crescent, a playful evocation of London childhood memories. Other Beamish works include the haunting Glanz for solo viola and the feisty Prelude and Canon for two warring violas. From family members there’s son Laurie Irvine’s spiky tango-like Lurk, the heated angst of other son Tom’s Where You Are, and daughter Stephanie’s haunting, beautifully sung House of Wonder. There’s much more besides, including Chris Stout and Catriona McKay’s toe-tapping Sally’s Tune. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Zoe Rahman: Hull Suite Live (Manushi Records) ★★★★

Commissioned by Hull Jazz Festival for 2024’s World Piano Day, pianist Zoe Rahman’s Hull Suite incorporates themes of voyage, migration and family, drawing inspiration from Hull’s maritime history and her own part-Bengali lineage, as well as her mother, who was once forced to sell her piano. Rahman’s characteristically vivid delivery, accompanied by two longstanding associates, double-bassist Alec Dankworth and drummer Gene Calderazzo, is expansive and frequently exhilarating. Following the dreamy prelude of Across the Humber and Out to Sea, the purposeful Piano Story gets things underway in earnest, escorted by stormy drum work, while springy bass and Rahman’s keyboard brilliance make Voyage a joyous one and East Coast brings the transatlantic crossing to an exuberantly swingy, bluesy conclusion. As well as the suite, three other tracks include a blisteringly no-nonsense album opener, Synergy, and a vigorous re-working of 2016’s Red Squirrel. Jim Gilchrist

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