Well done, Marina...

In case you were wondering, Marina & The Diamonds' debut album The Family Jewels, is fantastic. It's brilliant and inventive and clever and fun, but best of all you can tell, just by listening to it that this isn't her best work. Its most winsome quality is that it shows huge potential. We might be wrong here, but Marina gives off a 'here-to-stay' vibe. And a 'I'm-only-going-to-get-better' one too.

As for stand-out tracks there's one that sounds like a sore thumb in a pristine finger factory (!!) and that's "Shampain". In an album full of stand-out tracks (previous singles "I Am Not A Robot", "Mowgli's Road", "Obsessions" and "Hollywood" par example) "Shampain" is like a glittering fountain of thumbs, visible from space. It's bonkers, it's euphoric, it's memorable, it's got fab lyrics ("celestial" anyone? amazing!) it sounds like a single, but it fits into the 'shape' of the album. It's a bit Kate Bush (it actually does sound a bit like Kate Bush, we're not just being lazy journalists!!!). We love it and we've had it on repeat for days.

Finally: another great quality the album has is that, whilst the production is, undoubtedly, original and interesting, it doesn't own the album. There's a growing trend for up-and-coming young solo artists (especially female ones) to work with ONE producer and produce A SOUND that they are then associated with and expected to replicate for their (flop) second album. This work doesn't have that. The songs are the heroes here and as long as Marina can keep writing them, the production can keep doing its job - to enhance the music, not lord over it.

Stunning stuff.