I’ve always been suspicious of the ukulele as I’ve always thought it a secret weapon of mass musical destruction ejaculating, as it does, excessive cuteness before it. So, with a mixture of curiosity and outright terror, the play button got pressed on Eliza Newman’s EP.
I know she’s from Iceland – which is, of course, a country and not a frozen food store like I thought – but is she as wholesome as she seems? Neatly emulating the Queen of twee pop Elizabeth Morris on “Ukulele Song For You” (a big hit in her native Iceland it would appear), Ms Newman hits all the right buttons for the bedsit cardigan wearers and then sets out to out sensitive the smarter Euro princesses like Sofia Talvik with “Out Of Control”. Then, in a moment of cunning topicality, Ms Newman even throws in the cutest exploding volcano song ever written with “Eyjafjallajökull”.
There’s got to be a plan behind these songs. They are so nice that you can’t fail to like them but I still have the suspicion that Eliza Newman wants to kill your cat. You wouldn’t find Jo Mango countenancing such an action but there you go. One paranoid reviewer now goes to check the health of his pet…