With a title like ‘Sheezus’, you’d expect more pizzazz from Lily Allen’s new album. Instead, her usual sass and sharp sarcasm is replaced by a pitiful attempt to be introspective and mature – jumping from a song about the joys of married life (‘L8 CMMR’) to one about Katy Perry roaring and Lorde smelling blood (‘Sheezus’). The album seems to promise nothing but mediocrity, with even Allen admitting that 'there’s been better stuff in the past', and that she was 'just relieved to have something that slightly resembled [her]'. 

Although we’re glad that this provided her relief from a four-year hiatus of marriage and motherhood, Sheezus seems ‘Insincerely Yours’, and her album is just ‘here to make money, money, money’. 

While we glimpse a bit of relief in the songs ‘Air Balloon’ and ‘Our Time’, which bounce from light and airy to Gossip Girl-esque glamour, we’re left with a disappointing emotional train wreck halfway through the album with the song ‘Take My Place’. This sudden emotive ballad screams for the album to end, with Allen’s lyrics crying: ‘will someone else please take my place?’ – an apparent plea for relief from the album’s mediocrity. And just when you thought the album could not further disappoint, she quickly follows the ballad with a random hoedown country tune whose lyrics appropriately echo its absurdity: ‘I had that awful feeling, that I needed help.’

She sure needed help. While Allen promised that she was ‘ready for all the comparisons’ because she thought ‘it’s dumb and it’s embarrassing’, she clearly should not have ‘switched off, no longer listening’, because now she’s ‘persecuted and conditioning’. Comparing herself to Rihanna, Beyoncé and Lorde, then taking cues from Vampire Weekend and even Mumford and Sons, was clearly not the way to go. Instead of hearing the distinct 'Lily' sound that we’ve all come to love, we’re instead bombarded with mediocre imitations of some of the world’s best artists. Lacking style and severely lacking any originality, perhaps it was a bad idea for Lily to drop out of the music scene for four years.

The album, however, has its few redeeming moments. The pumped-up dance hit ‘Hard Out Here’ reminds us of Allen’s appeal, as does the mellow song we all loved during Christmas, ‘Somewhere Only We Know.’ Her career, however, is only just saved by these few hits, and while the album should not damage her reputation, it should surely be a wake-up call.

But as Allen herself admits, ‘sometimes it’s hard to find the words to say’. After all, ‘it’s hard out here for a bitch’.