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"It&amp;#039;s a little disconcerting to see Amy Studt on the release slates again. Most of her contemporaries from the class of &amp;#039;03 have long since moved on: Kym Ryder&amp;#039;s in Corrie, Gareth Gates has just relaunched himself on Dancing On Ice and, well, heaven knows what happened to Triple 8? Studt&amp;#039;s reemergence is all the more remarkable considering that her first foray into the music industry ended so brutally. After selling a respectable 200,000 copies of her debut album, False Smiles, she opened the paper one morning to find out she&amp;#039;d been dropped. Ouch.  Given the lack of respect the industry afforded her, you can&amp;#039;t blame Studt for making her return with pigeon steps rather than big, bounding leaps: she played her comeback gigs under an assumed name, while My Paper Made Men, this belated sophomore album, is being released solely as a download. Thankfully, opening track &amp;#039;Sad Sad World&amp;#039; suggests that Studt&amp;#039;s toughened up during her extended holiday: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not that girl any more, she went away,&amp;quot; she hisses over snarling rock guitars. &amp;quot;Now I&amp;#039;m the one with the game, I won&amp;#039;t get played.&amp;quot; As this startling opener suggests, My Paper Made Men finds Studt attempting to reposition herself as a credible, emotionally literate singer-songwriter. Nothing here sounds like a British take on Avril Lavigne, as Studt&amp;#039;s early hits &amp;#039;Under The Thumb&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;Misfit&amp;#039; did, while her lyrics deal with very adult themes of self-doubt, outsiderdom and loneliness. The album&amp;#039;s sound, alternately gothic, rocky, lush and low-key, suggests Studt&amp;#039;s been swotting up on her femme-pop forbears recently. Therein lies the problem, because Studt has a tendency to wear her influences rather too literally. With its ringing piano riffs and overdubbed vocals, &amp;#039;Nice Boys&amp;#039; comes across as a Tori Amos pastiche rather than a song in its own right, while one too many tracks use Kate Bush-style vocalising (&amp;quot;ahyeahayeaha&amp;quot; and the like) to add layers of intrigue. Worst of all, does Studt really mimic Bjork&amp;#039;s accent on the chorus of &amp;#039;Walking Out&amp;#039;? Lack of originality aside, My Paper Made Men is frequently very promising. The intimate, stripped back intimate &amp;#039;One Last Cigarette&amp;#039; spotlights Studt&amp;#039;s way with a melody, while the strikingly raw &amp;#039;Furniture&amp;#039; suggests she could yet develop an artistic identity of her own. Her voice, able to cope with the rock bombast of &amp;#039;Chasing The Light&amp;#039; and the more subtle approach needed for &amp;#039;Furniture&amp;#039;, is an impressively supple instrument. Ultimately, My Paper Made Men is a little too derivative and self-consciously serious to count as a successful reinvention for Studt, but there&amp;#039;s enough here to earn her a second (third?) crack at the whip. For now, this album does at least confirm what your mother always told you: growing up isn&amp;#039;t supposed to be easy.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/album-reviews/review/a95217/amy-studt-my-paper-made-men/>