EMI
*** (3 stars)

What’s right about this, KT Tunstall’s second real studio album (there’s an acoustic album which popped out last year, initially by mail order only) is that there’s nothing wrong with it. What’s wrong with it is that everything’s right about it. Drastic Fantastic ticks all the boxes. Tunstall has an irresistible voice, can write a mean song, has lovely ideas about harmony and melody, flirts with rock bravado but most comfortably nestles in the bosom of mother pop. But her debut, Eye Of the Telescope remains the better album, simply because it’s less processed. KT was simply coming off her strumm and bash background and letting it fly. Nobody expected a mega hit, countless TV soundtrack appearances - oddly, Suddenly I See has been tacked on the end of Drastic Fantastic - and the odd likelihood that a Scottish singer/songwriter could break big in the US. So in a way it was only natural the album seems aimed at consolidating all those conquered territories. That said there’s enough of those quirky Tunstall tunings to keep it interesting. The third album could be very interesting indeed.

The curse of the sophomore set is largely overcome but too much fizzy drink does taint the party.