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However, the powerful but vulnerable vocals that drop suddenly several tones mid-flow straight from the Bjork songbook prove Drummond relies too heavily on her vocal influences (Tori Amos, Beth Gibbons, Kate Bush for a start) where her range and ability suggest she could move into her own territory successfully. She has the beginnings of an edginess that promises to deliver something new but never quite manages it.

After the overcrowded production on first track ‘Light’ Days Like These settles into an interesting varied sound and some tracks would lose interest were it not for some clever production touches, the panning and effects on the drums in ‘Lose Control’ for example, and some neat delays and distortion on the vocals.

Days Like These is mostly acoustic poppy tunes, sometimes crossing into rock (think big delays, reverbs, and driving beats), driving into a more Massive Attack/ Portishead arena on ‘Did You Whisper’ and ‘One Thousand Dreams’ (Rhodes-type keys, sparse reverb and heavy overdriven guitars). The only problem is, pleasant as all of this is, and pleasant and listenable it really is, it doesn’t break any ground that hasn’t been trod a thousand times by female singer-songwriters, and the familiar ground is a little too familiar to make this album stand out from the crowd. I ended up wishing she had taken a more consistent approach, left out some of the rockiness and really worked on reviving a new take on the acoustic trip-hop where her vocals really fly.

Listen to some of the tracks on the album at www.garageband.com/artist/tessa