Jigsaw

This is often quite brilliant genre-busting music from a girl who makes a mockery of Lily Allen’s status as the voice of ‘ordinary’ Britain.

The repetitive opener 'Let's Be Mates' gets the album off to a rocky start, but Lady Sov quickly redeems herself with 'So Human.'

Jigsaw is ultimately another mash-up of big electro-dance beats and hip-hop swagger.

Nothing lyrically spectacular or hip-hopfluential happens, but this release shows the sometimes troubled Sov finally putting the pieces together.

On Jigsaw, erstwhile Jay-Z protege Lady Sovereign reaffirms that she's the singular queen bee in the hive of the still-buzzing London grime syndicate.

It all combines into a sophomore effort that distinguishes itself on occasion, but doesn’t portend Sov’s second coming.

The female face of U.K. grime goes pop on her sophomore disc, singing as much as rapping and, in 'So Human,' jacking the groove from 'Close to Me' by the Cure.

So far, Sov’s done well for playing to her strengths, but it’s too short an album for filler, and a song about being unable to play the guitar is pointless, however melodic and Northern Soul the cello-part happens to be.

Cure-sampling single So Human proves ingenious, Jigsaw effectively swaps swearing for singing and Britney songwriter Dr Luke earns his keep. Alas, though, the backchat of Let's Be Mates proves as edifying as the top deck of the 43 bus.

The surprisingly poppy, chiming well with the times, and redolent of Betty Boo injected with Harman's back-of-the-bus humour result.

Sov's downfall is the occasional repetitiveness on songs like 'Pennies,' where cyclical beats and lyrics begin to grate. [May 2009, p.96]

This may be a much welcomed return for Lady Sovereign from the wilderness, but in the case of Jigsaw, it would seem that she's missing a few pieces to make this comeback a complete success.

Pleasingly, it's much better, not to mention poppier. [May 2009, p.115]

Sov never quite recaptures the brash personality and cutting-edge sound of her first album. The beats here are more pedestrian, the lyrics more tentative, and for all her talk in the press notes about resuming her career (after a six-month break) with a sense of control over her music, Jigsaw sounds more like an album without a firm direction than the wide-ranging statement of purpose she meant it to be.

The album--which, like its predecessor, was produced by Medasyn, another Londoner--merely strikes a few new poses.

Jigsaw tries to find common ground in a now-ubiquitous strain of electro-flavored club rap. It's sonically a good fit for her nimble and still undeniable flow, but the wheels come off whenever Sov's newfound earnestness undermines her insouciant appeal.

Without the instantly gripping singles, Jigsaw is as scattered as its title implies.

Lady Sovereign celebrates her freedom from Def Jam not by leading with the (middle) finger, but instead by showing her vulnerability....[But after the first three tracks,] the old Lady Sov returns. [May 2009, p.123]

The ska bounce of 'Student Union' is the closest Jigsaw comes to the familiar Sov sound of nasal bleats over agressive beats. [Spring 2009, p.77]

Her singing voice all across Jigsaw, like Eminem singing, makes you shudder slightly. She indicates tenderness by multitracking the vocals and aching earnestness, and when she breaks into sing-song rap in the middle of a slow ballad, the juxtaposition with her aggressive rap style shocks.

Producer Medasyn's beats are uneven, and so is Sov's hood-rat humor: weak on what should be a layup college-pub rant, inexplicable on a song about sex with food.

Jigsaw finds the diminutive London rapper shorter on cheek than on her early singles, and the moments of mischief, when they come, ring a little hollow. [Jun 2009, p.90]

Like Skinner's recent work, instead of woodshedding on the mixtape circuit like smarter and hungrier rappers, we're treated to lightweight albums that are three years in the making and still feel like a rushed jumble of bad ideas that just get worse as they go along.