Ellie Goulding’s gorgeous, ethereal voice sweeps you up and disarms you unexpectedly. It’s no surprise she’s gone from unknown to commercial success in barely six months.

Goulding has already won Critic Choice this year at the BRIT awards and topped the BBC Sound of 2010 chart. Her debut album Lights was released on iTunes in November last year – only two months after she signed her recording contract. It received acclaim and gained popularity a short while before its official release in April.

At first listen, the opening track of the album, Guns and Horses, sounds a lot like Sarah Blasko. While their styles are similar, there is a distinctive lightness to Goulding’s voice that couples with the use of backings with a more indie-pop flavour. This provides a wider audience appeal, such as in second single, Starry Eyed, which is one of the songs on the album that has a more electronic sound and is one of the stand-out tracks. It’s a shame that it was released before the album was finished and needed a single, because it would have been the strongest release.

Goulding’s lyrics are honest and have an innocent sweetness about them that her younger contemporaries lack. This Love (Will be your downfall), exposes her vulnerability; her vibrato flutters are reminiscent of Sinead O’Connor but Goulding puts more texture into her vocals.

Under the Sheets, the debut single, is the grittiest song on the album and her angelic voice sings about sleeping around, yet there is nothing sleazy about it at all, merely musing that “a lonely girl can drown out there”.

Every song on the album has the makings of a top 10 single with her fluttery voice and electro-folk melodies. Some of them are haunting, like The Writer, which is pure and brilliant and could speak to everyone with its piano and guitar and background twinkles.

Wish I Stayed is my favourite song on the album and is probably the most poetic, lyrically. The topic of leaving one’s home town is something that many of us can relate to, but she takes it to a completely different level.

Goulding has written and plays guitar on every track. Normally this shouldn’t be a surprise, but with so many successful artists who have done neither, I like to point out the difference when an artist can truly be described as a singer/songwriter. But the album release disappointed some fans, as the arrangement of some songs to become more commercially accessible took away from the original impact.

Goulding worked closely with producer Starsmith to collaborate on the album, and the split between guitar based – her earlier work – and electronic melodies reflects this.

For example, Your Biggest Mistake and Salt Skin have a more commercial sound from the production side of things, having been written for the album rather than before it.

This young Englishwoman has taken the indie-pop world by storm with her thoughtful lyrics and beautiful sound. It’s hard to tell whether you’re experiencing her infatuation or developing your own.

Listen to Ellie Goulding’s single Lights below.