Basia Bulat - Heart of My Own

Everybody knows the one about the ‘difficult second album’: promising musician shoots his/her bolt on a debut, spends a year piecing together fragmentary ideas between tour dates and promotion duties, and is then roundly crucified when their next effort fails to scale the heights of their opening salvo. Or so the story usually goes. This follow up to the acclaimed Oh, My Darling was written on the road, the three-year time lag enabling Basia Bulat to do some serious honing. At times it sounds a bit too polished – Run and Heart of My Own both lurch dangerously towards Tracy Chapman territory. Yet despite her earnestness Bulat remains an intriguing prospect. Opener Go On is urgent and immediate and is only let down by the hovering ghost of Mrs Doyle off Father Ted while ballads such as Once More, For the Dollhouse and Sugar and Spice are genuinely touching slices of folksy Americana. [Duncan Forgan]