Taking stock of an album so screamingly analogous can be difficult. Whilst sounding unique when compared to the musical landscape it exists in today, one would only need to look back thirty or twenty years to find music that sounds almost exactly like the blend of folk, pop, and jazz that Madeleine Peyroux offers on Standing on the Rooftop. Her voice too, sounds miles apart from any contemporaries, but oozes Billie Holiday at every turn. Ultimately, the listener struggles to reconcile the notion that whilst we’ve all heard things like this before, we haven’t witnessed it being performed quite as stylishly as it is here.

Away from this infuriating dichotomy the record works really well on a number of different levels. It’s very lovely. It’s lovely like a simile obliquely disguised as a personal statement describing just how lovely it actually is. It’s cool as well. Second track, “The Kind You Can’t Afford” practically drips cool as an incredibly tight jazz band improvises around Peyroux semi-speaking, semi-cooing vocals. The title track manages the same trick, but in a darker, more assured, less throwaway manner.

It’s not all roses though. The record falls flat in the last three tracks, like a joke where it’s not wanted. “Meet Me In Rio” offers nothing new to the album, while both “Ophelia” and “The Way of All Things” meander aimlessly, never reaching a real crescendo, and just petering out.

On the whole though, Standing on the Rooftop, Madeleine Peyroux’s fifth on her own, is a confident one. The songs are well executed and muster just about enough originality to make the listener forget any comparisons to older artists. Like a… oh whatever.

Final Words: The songs, performance, and execution more than overpower the few clichés there are.