With two Ivor Novello awards for songwriting and a mentorship from Chris Martin that landed her on the Pyramid stage last year during Coldplay’s record-breaking Glastonbury set, Victoria Canal’s inaugural steps have come co-signed to the hilt. Her debut is an accomplished justification of the early praise – an album that pitches the Spanish American Canal as neither out-and-out pop star nor radio-friendly balladeer but something altogether more fluid.
Where the sultry, Cuban rhythms of California Sober blaze with the lust of youth, Cake’s ominous purr could be an early Billie Eilish offering until an almost drum’n’bass beat drops in to play. How Can I Be a Person meditates on toxic comparisons with the sort of gut-punch knack for devastation that nods to Phoebe Bridgers or Bon Iver, while the steady guitar motif of 15% recalls her old mate Martin’s early track Sparks.
Clearly, there is much of Slowly, It Dawns that draws from the familiar, yet Canal’s touch is deft enough to consistently steer these ideas towards less expected moments that feel wholly hers. Though her debut tries on a lot of sounds for size, it’s the craft at the centre of it all that shines brightest.
