There is so much to like about Kathryn Williams. She puts out her own records, happily admits that her goal is to make people cry and when she performs she fulfils all the criteria of a perfect live show. She sings and plays beautifully, laughing at herself on the one occasion when her fingers flutter on her acoustic guitar strings. She smiles admiringly as her friend Laura Reid enriches each song with her exquisite cello lines and grins when the drummer pulls out a box of Tate & Lyle sugar to recreate the shuffling rhythm on Lydia. She seems nervous and embarrassed by the cheers that greet each song and yet, unlike so many other performers, she overcomes this enough to chat amiably with her obviously devoted fans.
She is sweet, charming - nice, reckons the girl sitting next to me. But this isn't enough. There are hints of darkness in Williams's lyrics: "I'm sinking down," she muses on Madmen and Maniacs, from last year's debut album Dog Leap Stairs. "Is your life so exciting you have to tell everyone you meet?" she snidely comments on Soul to Feet, from the Mercury-approved Little Black Numbers. But there's very little darkness in her style. There's no reeling, no unravelling, no stabs at the heart. Nothing volatile. Without that, these songs feel one-dimensional. Williams's gorgeous, ethereal voice floats along a silky, creamy surface, never tearing through to rawer emotions beneath.
The best song she plays in the set, You Tell the Truth As If It Were Lies, hints at how powerful she could be if she let a few devils mingle with her angels. Dedicated to someone she doesn't like, its indigo melodies and assertive cello almost pack a punch. But for the most part, you're carried along in a haze of loveliness that is pleasant but uninvolving. It is admirable that Williams has a style that feels utterly idiosyncratic, but watching her is a safe experience, in a way that watching PJ Harvey, for example, or Cat Power, would never be. But then, it's exactly that element of blandness that makes her a top tip for the Mercury - whatever William Hill think.
