Album Review: Samson & Delilah by V.V. Brown

A provocative, menacing beast has arrived with the release of V V Brown’s polarizing sophomore album Samson & Delilah. Rarely does an artist reinvent themselves in so drastic a manner, that their previous incarnation sounds like that of a completely different musician. The retro-leaning, R&B, soul and rock & roll texture of her debut album Traveling Like The Light has been replaced with avant-garde synth pop, epic in scope and icy cold in delivery.

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"Children," a peppy song that incorporates that popular ice-cream truck melody lifted from the 18th century folk song "Turkey in the Straw," was released in September 2011, as the lead single from VV Brown's second album. That album, titled Lollipops & Politics -- perhaps destined to be similar to Travelling Like the Light -- was delayed and then scrapped. Two years later, Brown returned with Samson & Delilah, an icy, cathartic set released on her own label.

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In 2009, VV Brown was considered one of pop’s brightest hopes. Three years later however, and the singer is something of a minor footnote as her debut album failed to truly connect. There’s the sense that this was not entirely the fault of Vanessa Brown. Travelling Like The Light was a fairly functional and generic sprightly major label debut album but it resembled more of a stylised product than a committed artistic project.

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V V Brown was already an oddball among her peers when she surfaced in 2009. Her debut that year, “Travelling Like the Light,” was a freewheeling hodgepodge of bubblegum pop and retro soul. She didn’t fit into one category then and she certainly doesn’t now with the release of her sophomore album. “Samson & Delilah” casts the English singer and songwriter even further afield, a mesmerizing right turn into the murky waters of throbbing R&B and ambient dance pop.

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