… for some reason she’s let her solo career be dictated by her love of cabaret and torch songs. That made a bit of sense in the mid-noughties during the reign of cabarets, Club Bricktops, and her own Mata Hari nights at Tangier, but it didn’t work at all when opening for her buddies in bands like Celebrity Skin, where her gentle ballad-pop simply got drowned out by its lack of sheer might. With this album, she hasn’t lost the narrative lyrics or the chord changes, but now her voice doesn’t stand alone in a field of schmaltz—she’s finally brave enough to let her lovely voice (it really sounds better than ever) compete with the big guns of bass, guitar and drums.

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