The trouble with the immaculate, stage-managed ethos of artists like Izzi Dunn is that the pursuit of slick perfection on their records results in a trite, hollow sound forever grasping out for shreds of contemporary relevance. Cries & Smiles is strongly reminiscent of A Fool in Love, the debut record by Mike Batt-created soul diva Florence Rawlings, released at the tail end of last year. Like that record, this seems like a deliberate grab for the Christmas market, an eclectic but stretched album packed with guest appearances and fashionable credits but barely held together by its star.

Comically-named Dunn is a cellist of Damon Albarn’s own string section, which means that an appearance by Pharcyde member Bootie Brown – who like Dunn also appeared on the Gorillaz record Demon Days in 2005 – is not entirely surprising. Their collaboration, ‘Loser’, is a pretty misplaced exercise in fusing a dull kind of hip hop with what is ostensibly a soul record, fitting Cries & Smiles in with any number of modern records which seek to draft in representatives of whichever genre is thought to sell in this day and age. On the other side of the coin, we see Lil Wayne releasing what he apparently perceives as a rock album…

A little later, ‘Analogue Girl’ can list among its crimes the use of the cringworthy term “retrosexual”, as it charts Dunn’s feelings of misplacement as the titular analogue girl in our forbidding digital world. While she quotes Steve Miller’s (or maybe Seal’s?) ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ the irony of the whole song in light of Cries & Smiles production techniques seems lost on everyone involved. Ultimately, the whole idea has been covered with infinitely more panache by Lykki Li and Röyksopp on their similarly nostalgic song ‘Miss It So Much’ last year.

For all that pursuit of perfection – crooning vocals, ten tracks exactly, slick production and a stellar credit list – Cries & Smiles is ultimately a soulless exercise in commercial album-making. There are better albums than this; better soul albums; better British soul albums. In any true sense, soul is exactly what this record lacks – devoid of any roughness, imperfection or passion it is pretty paper around a sadly empty box.