Can’t Rely On You
Paloma Faith
3:20 min • RCA • February 23, 2014
John Preston reviews
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Paloma Faith has made a record that many won’t have expected her to. The first single from her forthcoming third album A Perfect Contradiction is – and let’s just get this out of the way with quickly – a bit like the hugely irritating but equally as enjoyable ‘Blurred Lines’. This is because it’s produced by Pharrell Williams and is pulled out from his retro-indebted James Brown/Marvin Gaye file rather than the zapping, car alarm and stun gun loaded capsule that he used to dazzle us with at the turn of the decade.
Paloma Faith has always cast herself as the semi-tragic and betrayed glamazon, albeit one who refuses to take herself too seriously. As confirmed by the single’s title, there’s been little change (see also the epic and hysterical video below). Punctuated with many a “hey!”, “come on with it”, “help me”, “oh lord” and Pharrell himself declaring “I don’t know what this world is coming to”, it succeeds in being both deliciously funky and also her most explicitly pop moment to date.
With Faith turning in a soulful, periodically histrionic vocal that, when combined with the brass stabs and euphoric sonic mood, has an energy and sparkle that her last album, the surprisingly safe and considered Fall To Grace, lacked. Admittedly the middle eight isn’t much more than the addition of Pharrell’s much loved cowbell and the song is certainly solid if not brilliant. ‘Can’t Rely On You’ still manages to bode well for an album which promises to see Paloma come face to face with her hi-energy inclinations, with her inner dance floor obsessions being bought to the fore. It’s an interesting, and potentially hugely entertaining, re-think for Ms Faith.
