As Nerina Pallot observes, radio seems to get behind just one female singer-songwriter a year, making the odds against success about the same as winning the lottery. They have probably been lengthened by Dido, who is on course to end the year with the biggest-selling British album. So what hope for a Jersey girl - that's Jersey as in tax haven, not Springsteen - who sounds like every poetic soul who ever picked up an acoustic guitar after discovering Joni Mitchell's Blue album?

It should be noted that Pallot isn't just a garret Bambi ("I'm so scared I needed a whole bottle of brandy to get on stage," she admits winningly). She also claims to have "a belly full of anger", a condition songwriters accept as an occupational hazard. Hers, though, is buried under cut-glass diction and congenital sweetness, and an hour-long set conveys only mild vexation, even when feedback mars a lilting version of Dear Frustrated Superstar.

Major label Polydor obviously discerns something in Pallot's chameleon-like ability to sound like every British female singer from Eddi Reader to Baby Spice, as it has made her a priority act. It must be trusting, however, that songwriter fashion is about to swing back from Dido's rap-rooted pop to Pallot's unconfrontational traditionalism. Pallot admits to idolising Neil Finn, a master of old-style songcraft, but Finn is a world-class exponent of grown-up pop, while Pallot feels like a half-formed tangle of glossy hair and winsomeness.

At the Borderline, London W1 (020-7734 2095), on Monday.