It's hard to believe that Emma Louise Niblett, otherwise known as Scout, is from Nottingham, England. There's not a trace of British accent anywhere on her debut album, Sweet Heart Fever. I have a suspicion that she's the reincarnation of a Louisiana bayou blues songstress, reborn to tell her tales of love and desire. There's more than a hint of southern American twang in each of these fourteen songs, and her guitar seems as apt at spinning yarns as jangling out these folky tunes.
On first listen, Niblett may seem overly precocious. "So Much Love to Do" bounces along merrily on the upstroke of her guitar. "It's comin' after me, 'cause I'm comin' after you," she sings, drawing out the notes in a cutesy crescendo. But then she places a nice, ominous pause between "there's so much love" and "to do," which she sings falteringly. This hint of hesitance carries on through most of her work. "Miss My Lion" begins with an intense Zeppelin-esque riff, then breaks down into subtle strumming. Her plaintive cry contrasts well with the whimsical lyrics: "When we get home, it'll be like a party/ See how we move, sunlit and playful." Then the song shifts to aggressive pickwork again and her voice loses all restraint: "When you drive, there's no fooling me/ Those roads invited me."
Niblett's voice can pierce the high register almost painfully, but more often, she remains somewhere between girlish warble and sultry waver. The production work is immediate, bringing the sounds of her guitar to the forefront, and yet, her songs retain a certain mystique. She's joined on some tracks by drummer Kristian Goddard. The lilting groove created by her chords and his bass drum on "The Dance of Sulphur" adds to the mystery in her lyrics: "I felt something guarding me, as I entered the country..."
You could call Niblett's lyricism "mysterious," but at times, she plain doesn't make sense. That song goes on to mention something about "falling over constantly," psychic moles (?!) and "where the wild things rest," as far as I can tell. Other lyrics confess that "Neptune's in transit" and "trampling action causes me upsets." Niblett's ability to transform her simple instrumental setup into a unique patchwork of emotion and imagery is impressive, but the resulting impressionist canvas might be annoying to some in its fussy level of self-concern. It's like the nervous manifestation of fever dreams on a long, hot summer night.
Still, Niblett hits home more often than not. On "Wet Road," there's no mistaking the shivering tension in her voice, barely containing some unnamable desire as she sings, "Wet road, paradise, wet roads today/ On the way to your house again." She goes on to chide like a young Bessie Smith: "Don't ya know just to play with what you're given?" And the straightforward Kinks-esque guitar and Appalachian drum stomp on "Big Bad Man" is great: "Big Bad Man, lives all alone in the blue hills/ Everyone seems so scared of you/ I'm gonna cook you some real food!"
I admit, I was put off at first by Niblett's raw voice-- I'm not much for folky singer-songwriters. But Niblett won me over with the last few songs, especially "Ground Breaking Service," in which the funereal subject matter is set off against a surreal series of notes, eerily just out of tune. The songwriting on these last few pieces matches the contrast between "sweet" and "fevered" suggested in the album title; my only suspicion is that Niblett is capable of greater work than this. So I'm curious to see if she'll continue to sketch like this on the sidelines, or if we can expect a fuller portrait from the artist in the future.
