Emily Loizeau's second offering, Pays Sauvages impresses and frustrates in equal measure. At its best the album blends Regina Spektor's quirkiness with Randy Newman's bold songmanship, yet at times Loizeau contents herself with purposeless filler ("Fais Battre Ton Tambour") and substandard Velvet Underground rip-offs ("In Our Dreams"). The justification, surely, is that a modern folk singer must employ innovation to stretch her genre in interesting enough ways to occupy a listener for 45 minutes, but diversity is not always a virtue. Much of the record is a tour-de-force of rhythm, instrumentation and popular harmony, as witnessed by the excellent title track and the Beirut-esque "Sister". Loizeau's voice carries well and grows warmer with every listen. But too many of these sixteen songs conform to exactly what you'd expect from a 21st century chanteuse, leaving you only half a record to enjoy over petit-dejeuner.