CD Review: Jessica Simpson

Jessica Simpson: Sweet Kisses (Columbia)

By the BBC's Nigel Packer

From JR to the Cowboys, Dallas has long been home to the big and brash. So it's only fitting that the city's latest export should have a singing voice to match.

Whether bigger always means better is another matter entirely, of course, as a quick listen to Sweet Kisses will testify.

With Britney and Christina dominating the airwaves, it's perhaps inevitable that Jessica Simpson should find herself bracketed as another in the ever-growing line of precocious teen stars to emerge from the US.

'Pop muppets'

The 19-year-old's publicity team are keen to distance her from the "various pop muppets" (whoever could they mean?), preferring instead to cast her in the mould of mature vocalist.

But in truth this may prove something of a forlorn hope.

Her debut album's handful of slow, syrupy love songs may suggest a greater affinity with the likes of Celine Dion and (pre-makeover) Whitney Houston.

Simpson: Promoted as a mature vocalist

But ultimately Sweet Kisses is dominated by the kind of chirpy pop songs favoured by Jessica's young rivals. Given the painful sincerity of the slower tracks, this is something of a relief.

Throughout the course of the album she proves to have a voice of great power and precision, although the melodies often get lost amid the endless vocal pyrotechnics.

With a range reaching somewhere into the stratosphere, she could probably match Celine herself in an iceberg-shattering contest.

But like the Canadian singer there's a curious lack of warmth about her delivery, not helped by some synthetic-sounding arrangements.

Overblown sound

I Wanna Love Your Forever, Your Faith In Me, Heart Of Innocence - all the slowies are swamped by cloying keyboards and drums which sound like they were recorded in an aircraft hangar.

Even upbeat songs like I Think I'm In Love With You are prey to the same overblown, 1980s-style sound, which wouldn't sound out of place in an old episode of Miami Vice.

Better moments include Woman In Me - a sparky collaboration with Destiny's Child - and the catchy My Wonderful.

But however proficient she may be as pop siren and windswept balladeer, it's hard to avoid the feeling that this is an album delivered from the conveyor belt rather than the heart.