Amie Miriello: I Came Around

A tepid but promising folk-pop debut

Amie Miriello is wired for sound, no doubt about it. She can slip from a Stevie Nicks wail to a Regina Spektor octave-crusher in one verse; she even does one hell of an Alanis Morissette impression. That wealth of vocal character saves the better songs on I Came Around, but for the most part, her pipes are wasted on empty lyrics. On the peppy "Brand New," she sings write-by-numbers lines like, "See you walkin' down the street/Kind of guy I'd like to meet/Come on and give it to me." Breakup ballad "Who You Really Are" is filled with generic journal entries like, "I guess I can't be too sure/Of who you really are." Somewhere, a teen girl driving her dad's car is turning up the volume.

The moments that work, though, derive their strength from simplicity. She gains ground on "Snow," which takes a page from Spektor's crazy-good-voice-and-sparse-piano playbook (think "Field Below"-lite). It's beautiful, but highlights the rest of the album's contrivances. "Hey" has a bluesy smolder perfect for displaying her Cat Power-esque growl, and she scores again on "Mother Cries Wolf," a tidy bit of storyteller songwriting about an unstable home life.

Acoustic strumming and emotional disillusionment? The girl may have an edge to her after all. She cites influences like Ryan Adams and Son Volt, and their presence is tangible at times. But Miriello employs their grit without the old-soul shine to match, a germ of alt-country peering out from behind a facade of bubble gum. Ay, there's the rub: The youngster has it in her, but she is a youngster. And she says it best herself on the folky but single-ready title track: "I'm learning as I go."