Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

If anything, Bloom actually improves on the sparse beauty of Beloved One, meshing in some of the sounds of her Lamb days, offering an extra layer of emotional warmth to the mix, and adding something that has occasionally been lacking in her work; genuine soul.

Lou Rhodes - Bloom

That comes mostly from her decision to make the album in a much more live way, recording in single takes and insisting on getting effects and drama in on the actual takes, rather than adding it after the fact. It’s an approach best shown in the somewhat epic lead single, The Rain, which even comes complete with John Bonham-esque drums.

As always with her, it is an album filled with drama, with light and shade, and with acres of the best and worst of love.

There are quivering emotional shivers, in the shape of This Love and All We Are, a pair of driven shimmering shuffles, Greatness In A Speck Of Dust and Chase All My Winters Away, and the closing Bloom that makes a twisting meander that showcases the simple power of her voice.

What Bloom underlines mostly boldly though is that she has once and for all freed herself from the shadow of her successful leftfield band and proven that she grows more confident and ambitious with every album.

It seems that while the industry has looked at the likes of Natasha Khan and Kate Nash to lead an idiosyncratic charge, there’s been a misplaced Mancunian growing into a genuine individual star.

Requiring only one point of reference, that of the queen of do-it-your-own-way, Björk, how exciting is it to have our very own homegrown version of the Icelandic songstress?