Lauren Aquilina - Sinners

18 year old UK singer/songwriter Lauren Aquilina has a charm that more cryptic and pretentious songwriters could never hope to exhude. On latest single "Sinners", Lauren is lyrically very raw and sometimes charmingly clumsy - "let's be sinners to be saints" - but her earnest, youthful voice makes every awkward rhyming pair sound feasible and even as poignant as intended.

Genre-wise, Lauren touches on the atmospheric piano-power-balladry of Birdy and Gabrielle Aplin, but her delivery trumps both for sheer believe-ability. Unlike a lot of her peers, she sounds as if she is listening to what she is singing, rather than spending 3 minutes forming vowel sounds out of cracked teen girl angst. It gives her a personality, a platform to deliver a message, and potentially long term career growth. And it makes every elegiac piano chord and distant vocal flourish sound twice as beautiful as a result.

Her Sinners EP is out now on iTunes.

FOR FANS OF: Birdy, Gabrielle Aplin, Ellie Goulding