Endlessly

The rest is a lacklustre recast of her debut that displays about as much personality as Duffy's sweetly banal interviews, all of which suggests her production team are a weakened bunch. Like we said, a remarkable return.

It's when Duffy and co stop trying so hard that the album fairs best. [Jan. 2011, p. 100]

Lyrics are heavy-handed (especially on the Papa Don't Preach rip-off Keeping My Baby), melodies are forgettable, and her voice has little charm or personality. Disappointing.

It's rigorously written, but Duffy sounds uncertain, spotlighting the particulars of her voice: the many crannies, the narrow backbone, the decay at the edges, the tentativeness she feels when it's unclear just how much room she has to maneuver.

From the beginning of her career, Duffy's voice alone was clearly not her most potent weapon. Here, she oddly attempts to build an album out of it, not succeeding with anything close to the power and elegance of Rockferry.

Though not without its charms, Endlessly is too slight and uneven to impress unconditionally.

Endlessly both reverts to old tricks quickly and constantly strains to update Duffy's appeal, and it's an awkward mix. Her material is frustratingly hit-or-miss either way.

Endlessly is like many successors to huge-selling albums: the attempts to break with the artist's trademark sound are tentative, and the result is a record that hedges its bets to only limited success.

That cat-in-a-swing-coat yowl will still be a divider for many, but it's a snag of human individuality in a smooth, if mixed pack.

Her ballads and neo-disco songs are steeped in lovelorn melodrama, but her bland persona doesn't give the storms life. You're left with saggy stylistic gestures that seem to drag on, endlessly.

Endlessly is unlikely to repeat Rockferry's wildfire success--what could?--lacking as it does instantaneous radio killers. But Duffy's success has always been dependent on both her beautiful voice and her producers' ability to tap into boomer tastes with snippets of 60s pop and nods that drift from Lulu (in Well, Well, Well) to the more modern likes of Madonna.