I had three big problems with Kate Miller-Heidke before I'd even heard any of her music. Firstly, she shares one of her last names with my high school principal, an autocratic Colonel Klink-esque bureaucrat who I despised with every fibre of my being for a number of years. Secondly, she actually appeared on one of those horrid early morning news shows that commercial TV seem so fond of running, leading me to believe that her target audience was... the sort of people who watch early morning television news programmes. And thirdly, she's obviously been the subject of an intense and expensive marketing campaign.

The third is the most troubling, because usually it's been my experience that when a band or artist requires a marketing campaign, then they're usually rubbish. Good music will promote itself, and so heavy promotions usually mean that the music isn't really that good. Kate Miller-Heidke's has an expensive looking Flash website, has appeared on the cover of most of Brisbane's indie music street press in the past couple of weeks, and has been on numerous commercial television programmes, all without actually having released an album yet.

Danger, danger Craig Franklin!

Once I got my hands on the CD, things didn't get much better either. Opening track, I Got The Way sounds like Kate Bush attempting to do a rap song, and I don't mean that in a good way. The trebly, jumbled piano fill that constantly pops up all over the track is annoying in the extreme, and makes it look like they're just trying to throw random sounds into a track in the hope of coming up with something worthwhile.

Listening beyond the first track though, things quickly begin to look up. Words, the first single, initially didn't make much of an impression upon me, but after listening a bit longer, it's definitely grown on me. Built around several very taut, artificial sounding effects loops, it has Miller-Heidke doing a much better trip-hop vocal performance, one that actually matches well with the song. It's obviously been built with radio airplay in mind, since it's three minutes long and jammed with hooks, but it's so well put together that I don't really care.

Without a doubt my favourite track on the album is Space They Cannot Touch, however. While it's more or less the token "slower song" thrown into the album, its gorgeous production, built around a gently ascending bass line, with a few tasteful fills added in during the later verses, makes it a real standout. The vocal performance, so different to the overtly pop sentiment earlier on in the album, is enough to confirm that the all that press buzz about her "amazing" voice has some basis in fact.

Despite this, "Little Eve" is still obviously an album from someone without a great deal of experience under their belt. Miller-Heidke has an amazing vocal range, but hasn't yet learned to employ it properly in her songwriting, in many places it feels like she jumps all over the place just because she can. The lyrics in many places feel underdeveloped as well, on Bored With Me she complains that "You're getting bored with me/I'm bored with myself/I'll have another chocolate milk.", and it's about as compelling as it sounds (oddly, her bio for some reason highlights this as one of the lyrical highlights of the album).

Still, once she gets the lyric writing thing sorted out, there is a lot of potential for Kate Miller-Heidke to develop into an interesting and talented artist. She's not quite there yet, but with some slight improvements, she may even go so far as redeeming the family name in my eyes. So long as she stays off of daytime television.