Artist: Duffy

Album: Endlessly

Label: Mercury

It's rare to find a young talent confident in her own abilities and in control of her sound despite a short career.

Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Aimee Mann - these songbirds have all emerged fully-formed in recent years. Another one to add to the list is Duffy, the Welsh-born pop star whose second album, Endlessly, repeats the flights of fancy from her 2008 Rockferry debut by delivering a delightful mix of soul, jazz, and early rock and roll. A brief album, at just over 30 minutes of music, Endlessly is the musical equivalent of sponge candy: light and fluffy, dissolving not too long after contact, but not without leaving a sugar rush behind.

The album finds its own niche comfortably almost immediately, with the album opener, "My Boy," a soulful shuffle with programmed beeps swimming around a thin, but kinetic, string section. Throughout the album, Duffy and co-producer Albert Hammond find a myriad of uses for the strings. "Too Hurt to Dance," is a throwback to the days of Peggy Lee or Patsy Cline, a gentle breakup number in a waltzy tempo. Against a senior-prom, Righteous Brothers-style arpeggio, Duffy croons, "If they call it heartache, why is the rest of my body aching?" "Keeping My Baby" uses its strings to create a late-70's disco feel, and "Endlessly" combines acoustic guitar to breed a Norah Jones jazz sound.

Not all is laid back or stripped down. "Well Well Well" feels destined to be a club favorite, as is "Girl." Beneath all this is Duffy's sensational vocal prowess. She combines the effortlessness of Beth Orton or Dido with the full-throated sass of Tina Turner. Despite her youth, Duffy has soul to spare. It's like nothing else out there.

The common thread running through Endlessly is a distinct sound that is both timeless and modern. It might sound like it could have been created decades earlier, but there's enough contemporary flair to maintain its identity. Indeed, its brevity might be the only aspect lacking from Endlessly. The album feels like a model strutting a catwalk: hypnotic as it stalks the runway, but gone too soon, leaving only vague impressions of a pleasant sensation behind. The impressions created by Endlessly are indeed memorable, but fleeting.

*This Review First Published 12/15/2010