UK Album Review

Nick Levine from Digital Spy in the UK wrote this review of David’s album!

If you listened to this album without knowing anything at all about the artist - or glancing at the cover - you’d have David Archuleta pegged as a wholesome, mum-friendly sort in his late twenties. Well, wholesome and mum-friendly is accurate enough, but the singer is a good decade younger than this record makes him sound. Archuleta, who finished second on the last season of American Idol, is actually a smooth-cheeked 18-year-old who could pass quite easily for a member of the High School Musical cast.

His debut album makes the odd concession to his tender years - the authentically clunky title of ‘A Little Too Not Over You’, the teen romance lyrics of lead single ‘Crush’ - but musically it has more in common with recent Take That and Backstreet Boys than the Jonas Brothers. Its remit? Sturdy piano-based pop songs that cling to the middle of the road like a hedgehog with a deathwish. The lyrics, meanwhile, are as non-specific and universally applicable as you’d expect from an album that was rushed together after a reality show.

However, this isn’t to say that David Archuleta is a dud. ‘Crush’ is easily the best tune here, but the choruses of ‘Barriers’, ‘My Hands’ and ‘Don’t Let Go’ soar in all the right places and the spunky ‘Your Eyes Don’t Lie’ sounds a bit like a country-pop cover of ‘You’re So Vain’. In fact, the only misfires are the melodramatic ‘Desperate’, whose slightly spiteful lyrics don’t suit Archuleta, and a competent but ultimately rather pointless cover of Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’.

But the ace in this album’s pack is Archuleta himself. His warm, weighty vocals crank even the most pedestrian songs up a notch and he certainly isn’t lacking in confidence - check out his ad libs on ‘A Little Too Not Over You’. So well does he acquit himself, in fact, that it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say he’s turned this pretty average collection of songs into a thoroughly listenable debut album.

Nick Levine from Digital Spy in the UK wrote this review of David’s album! If you listened to this album without knowing anything at all about the artist - or glancing at the cover - you’d have David Archuleta pegged as a wholesome, mum-friendly sort in his late twenties. Well, wholesome and mum-friendly is accurate enough, [...]

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