Rebecca Ferguson - Freedom

So another Christmas has just passed and with it another Rebecca Ferguson album cycle; but does her sophomore effort offer any more than Heaven did when it comes to sustaining us for the rest of the year? Well, no, but it comes a lot closer.

There's always going to be a cosy element about Ferguson that prevents her from setting charts alight during the summer months, and that's fine: her voice is so distinctive that trying to grab a spring dance hit or an autumn hip hop feature would be bizarre. The problem is that last year's (and the year before that's) charts were dominated by someone with a very similar-sounding album to this. The Sandé. For now, Ferguson doesn't have the ubiquity to turn her into the UK's most defiant television-guest-with-shit-hair, so she wins that battle by default, but it's a risk to play it safe today and there were fears she'd blur into the background after this. What Ferguson has in her favour though is that voice, and it's stretched and sculpted into all sorts of lovely variations on her brand of Freedom.

Lead single 'I Hope' teeters precariously on the line between irritating and catchy because of its chorus, but the surrounding Rolling In the Deepness of it all saves it from the former; pulling off the difficult feat of sounding - simultaneously - vulnerably husky and assured diva. It'd probably be safe for an X Factor alumni to continue down the Adele route - and indeed she does to an extent with the fabulously dramatic and bold 'All That I've Got' - but instead she summons together a sombre Motown groove on 'Fake Smile' that allows her to charm very effectively. The accurately titled 'My Best' then turns another corner into a sort-of Kelly Clarkson upbeat rock-pop sound that boasts the album's most heartening and happy experience.

As is to be expected, there are moments where one's attention drifts: 'Hanging On' seems to reiterate itself a little too much and comes off as a little boring, whilst 'My Freedom' is severely lacking in drive. 'We'll Be Fine', too, is a bit of a dud; sugar-coated in all sorts of OneRepublic "hold my hand, don't let go" schmaltz both lyrically and musically.

The song titles that initially seem the most corny actually emerge as album highlights: 'Beautiful Design' and 'Wonderful World' definitely sound like subheadings in a Jehovas Witnesses leaflet, but execute that whole newly-single-woman-emerging-from-the-ashes vibe wonderfully. Unlike a lot of her contemporaries, Ferguson keeps her records pretty much exclusively to her own voice but on 'Bridges' she makes a small exception with John Legend, and for three and a half minutes there's little else going on in the world than their voices exquisitely wrapping around each other. The album's show-stopping moment, though, is probably the title track left until last. "But over the hills call out sounds/ spill out, break heavy ground/ angels dress, they dance around/ you can hear it" she hushes with a lyrical imagery virtually unknown to most other X Factor stars, and then her voice is unleashed in a spectacular chorus.

There are indeed the makings of an excellent British talent in Rebecca Ferguson and a small masochistic part of me hopes she can sever her ties with Syco - voluntarily or otherwise - so she can pull a few more of the strings herself. For the time being, she's a sort-of enchanting conjugal visit.

Rating: 7/10
Highlights: My Best; Wonderful World; Bridges; Freedom; I Hope
Avoid: My Freedom

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