It's Up To Emma

Scout Niblett is not so quietly building an intriguing catalog of idiosyncratic and extremely personal blues via indie rock. With her electric guitar slung across her shoulder, the English singer/songwriter digs deep into her personal life. (Hint: her real name is Emma Louise Niblett, for whom it's up to, says the title.) Sometimes she lets the arrangements build toward prettiness, but she also relies on the cathartic pounding of the drums and her own vocal contortions to get the message across. Just as the late Jason Molina often sounded as if he were one song away from a nervous breakdown, Niblett takes the impact of a romantic breakup and extrapolates an entire album's worth of beguiling songs, from the straightforward "Gun" to the surprisingly thrusting "Second Chance Dreams." A cover of TLC"s "No Scrubs" fulfills the indie rock trend of taking older mainstream hits, locating the emotional core, and adopting it to a basic, skeletal performance. "What Can I Do?" ends the album on a long dark night, where little more than Niblett's voice and guitar is left to deal with the mess that is her personal life.