Jane Weaver is something of a stalwart of the UK indie scene, having been part of Britpop outfit Kill Laura back in the 1990s, and folktronica group Misty Dixon a decade later. She’s only getting better with age, however, breaking the UK Top 30 for the first time with her 2021 solo album, Flock. This follow-up, produced by the great John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding) is even better, combining electro flourishes with strident guitar and ear-worm melodies.

Parish’s warm and fuzzy production is most welcome, Weaver sounding like she’s singing with a smile on her face, even when narrating break-ups. It’s all served up with a delicious indie-pop sensibility that – on tracks like the swoonsome ‘Romantic Worlds’ and ‘Univers’ – calls to mind mid-‘90s bedsit break-up merchants, the criminally under-rated Dubstar.

Built on a bed of gentle electronica, ‘Perfect Storm’ is three minutes and 14 seconds of alt-pop perfection. On ‘Happiness In Proximity’, the swoop and sway of the rhythm section, complete with fancy fills, feels slightly at odds with the melancholy melody, but it works really well, at once timeless and of the moment. Elsewhere, ‘Emotional Components’ comes complete with a searing guitar solo; spectral synths haunt the funereal ‘The Axis And The Seed’; and the title track is a mid-paced tour de force, where electronic flourishes augment Weaver’s strident vocal.

Wonderful.

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