Nina Nesbitt - The Apple Tree

17-year-old half Scottish/half Swedish singer Nina Nesbitt has developed quite a following over the past few months going from writing songs in her bedroom and posting the occasional video on YouTube to signing with BMG Mercury Records and touring with Ed Sheeran and Example. Nesbitt’s prodigious rise, helped undoubtedly by the patronage of Sheeran, has seen her anointed as the latest in a very long line of solo singers destined for the upper echelons of the singles and albums chart. It is easy to see why the mainstream is so excited about Nesbitt on her debut EP ‘The Apple Tree.’

Nesbitt’s style is very much rooted in the personable, slightly understated and winsome acoustic pop of her close friend Ed Sheeran. The songs here are slight and wispy yet any feel of organic beauty is tempered by an insipidness that dilutes any real emotion. The melodies are simple and effective but are lumbered with some hackneyed and clichéd lyrics with familiar themes of love and heartbreak re-appearing constantly in the five tracks. ‘The Apple Tree’ has a fairly nice rousing drive to it but elsewhere the tracks are firmly entrenched in emotive balladry.

‘Hold You’ and ’Make You Feel’ are ever so slightly overwrought piano ballads that admittedly do manage to show off Nesbitt’s excellent vocals which are pure and poised with a lilting Scottish brogue filtering through. ‘Only Love’ is the best track here, a shuffling, stuttering melody lifts it beyond an identikit acoustic pop sound and it is simply a really nice song. There is no doubt she does this sort of thing incredibly well, you do feel it is rather functional acoustic pop though and that she could potentially do much more.

Nina Nesbitt is certainly possessed with a good deal of talent, particularly for someone so young, but this collection of tracks feels like a functional prelude to inevitable major label success following an extremely well trodden path. Anyone looking for a bit more depth and a progressive sound will be best served looking elsewhere.