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Much of Bricks emulates that single's sound, a mix of piano and orchestral flourishes and clattery drum-machine backings, which along with Nash's charmingly full, slightly wobbly voice makes for a surprisingly durable sound. Blaring horns on the lusty "Pumpkin Soup" provide a late-album rush, but mostly she's comfortable with mid-tempo story-songs and the occasional painfully open ballad—"We Get On" and the later, more abject "Nicest Thing" sound about the same, and the candor ("I wish my smile was your favourite kind of smile/And I wish the way that I dressed was your favourite kind of style") makes you wince for her a bit. But Bricks is consequently more bracing and rewarding than most young-love-lost albums. "Dickhead" certainly suggests that the relationships our host does manage to have aren't exactly satisfactory; so far, Nash's work has the tang of someone wondering if that great love everyone sings about will ever happen to her. She shares Allen's cynical realism (there are plenty of horrible people out there), but Nash is less narcissistic and shows a lot more potential, with a definite eye for the grist of volatile romance. For now, we can happily settle for a great single and a solid album, but when she does fall in love, the result might just be messily epochal.

Kate Nash plays Bowery Ballroom January 9, boweryballroom.com.