When Santi White first delighted our ears four years ago with her self-titled debut as Santogold, female pop artists with an independent streak were something of a novelty.  Since then however there have certainly been scores of leading ladies who have stirred the blogosphere and racked up the plays on Soundcloud.  White’s second LP, and first as Santigold, arrives when women like Janelle Monae and Grimes are something of household indie names.  Whereas her debut was a massive coming out party, Master of My Make-Believe isn’t going to help her stand out from the crowd.  Her penchant for blurring the lines between genres and embracing her weirder tendencies still remains, but the fiery protest songs of her debut have now been replaced with something a little more vanilla and everyday.

The album opens with ‘GO!’, a song that features Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and it’s a match made in heaven, the two combine to make a high energy, somewhat ramshackle pop song that sets things off nicely.  ‘Freak Like Me’ provides a much-needed burst of energy in the middle of the record, showing off Santigold at her most confident and fearless.  It’s unfortunate that she in unable to maintain that level of excitement throughout however.

Master of My Make-Believe suffers from a lack of inventiveness that never held back Santogold.  Perhaps it’s the fact that this time around White has a reputation to maintain, and a whole hell of a lot more followers, or it’s the simple truth that independent pop and corporate powered mega pop have never been so closely associated as they are now.  Whatever the reason there are a number of songs here that could be classified as safe, something that would’ve seemed an impossibility for Santi White four years ago.  Tracks like ‘Fame’, ‘The Riot’s Gone’ and ‘The Keepers’ are little more than middle of the road populist crowd-pleasing pop.

Santigold will likely disappoint fans of Santogold unfortunately.  The carefree adventurousness of her debut has been lost somewhere.  Even with an impressive production lineup including Q-Tip, Dave Sitek and Nick Zinner, Master of My Make-Believe rarely rises above the mediocre.  Quite a bit has changed since Santi White burst onto the scene four years ago, and her second album proves she hasn’t been too successful in keeping up with the times.

Grade: C