Dodie Clark’s extensive fanbase will be more than ready for her debut album. Now 26, she’s been posting home-made videos on YouTube since 2007 and currently has close to two million subscribers to her main channel. She’s still prolific as a YouTuber – just last month she made a clip in which she harmonised to an electric toothbrush – but original songwriting has been a significant part of her output for around a decade, so this is no opportunistic side hustle.
More casual observers of her career to date will be expecting something highly twee – all her cover versions have come over like one long audition for the John Lewis Christmas ad, and she revealed her album title with a series of videos in which she knitted each letter, for God’s sake – so the darkness and maturity on display here is surprisingly powerful.
The sound is still intimate, her voice small and soft, and so understated that one title is simply a full stop. But there’s a richness to the strings and harmonies that arrive in Four Tequilas Down and the lustrous Sorry, and nothing jolly or kooky about icy ballads such as Rainbow. “So please step inside my soul/I’d love to watch you gasp,” she sings.
She also finds ways to keep quiet songs interesting, giving Special Girl a smooth bassline and clicking percussion, while the repeated chorus of Guiltless becomes more and more intricate. Before the Line could trick you into believing it’s Laura Marling, impressive enough to suggest the days of toothbrush duets are over.
