V.V. BROWN
Travelling Like the Light - ISLAND
FILTER Grade: 68%

V.V. Brown sets out to be a garish distiller of pop culture’s last 50 years so it’s no surprise that her loud fusion of crunk, R&B, soul and rock starts with a high-pitched shriek. That’s the first grating sound you hear on “Quick Fix,” the opening A.D.D. genre exercise on her clanging debut, Travelling Like the Light. The London-via-Northampton songwriter runs through her influences (Queen, Ruth Brown, nursery rhymes, blue-eyed soul queens and Super Mario Land) like a flipbook in a vacuum-sealed room. She only really cuts down the sugar intake for the soulful ’80s-like title track and the sentimental torch song, “I Love You.” Sleek singles “Game Over” and “Shark in the Water” are certainly cut for mass radio play, but often sound chintzy upon repeat listens. There’s a promising musician somewhere among the gobs of sheen, but wading through this rowdy flotsam proves tiresome.