Her first album in five years finds Tracy Bonham mostly reflecting on female rites of passage in songs like "In the Moonlight" and "Josephine" – the former featuring two girls out for the evening, the latter expressing the emptiness left behind when one runs off with a carnival worker.
The most assured is "Your Night Is Wide Open", in which cello and fingerstyle guitar backdrop idealised recollections, before brusque drums usher in a harder kernel of truth. But the standout track is surely "Devil's Got Your Boyfriend", an account of two-timing in which the sinuous, swaying Tom Waits-ian groove is laced with Bonham's elegant violin line and veneered with the 1940s charm of her harmonies, a brilliant blend of contrasting emotional pulls.
DOWNLOAD THIS Devil's Got Your Boyfriend; Your Night Is Wide Open; Josephine
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies