There's only one thing worse than bad pop, and that's bad pop that takes itself too seriously. Born of not only the same school of sound, but presumably the same year, class and group of playground mates as Lily Allen and Kate Nash, 24-year-old Londoner Remi Nicole shares the same clipped vocals and affinity for urban-related strife as her counterparts. The only difference is that she's neither original nor clever enough to twist the recently-fabricated genre into something that's new, fresh, and most importantly, worth listening to. The result is an album that's not only frustratingly unremarkable, but one that sounds old hat, even after just one listen. While Allen is backed up by her clever wordplay and sassy delivery, and Nash relies on her strong voice and inventive piano playing, Remi Nicole entrusts her success to her guitar-playing skills - which, needless to say, are exasperatingly prosaic - and her lyrics, which verge on downright awful in places. Most of the twelve tracks are either ballads, or acoustic-based pop that isn't a million miles from The Kooks' jangly style (Tabloid Queen, Dates From Hell, New Old Days); but there's also an occasional flash of a Jam-style flourish (Go With the Flow), or a golden-era Fleetwood Mac riff (Right Side of Me). Unfortunately that's about as exciting as it gets; with lyrics like 'Oooh ah ah ah, Tabloid Queen / You believe what you read, even though it may not be true', the best that can be said about My Conscience & I is that it's boring, throwaway pop, and a poor reflection on a genre that has admittedly, already reached saturation point.
