The songs of Tom McRae aren't for the faint-hearted. Sinéad Gleeson talks to the moodiest of singer-songwriters, who's been compared to Morrissey without the laughs'YOU'RE SEEN AS SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO BE MASTER OF THEIR OWN UNIVERSE. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I DO'

"I hate recording studios. They're like abattoirs - they reek of the blood of other people's songs that have been butchered there."

Most musicians reading those words will feel a chill of recognition, but then Tom McRae had ghosts of a different kind to contend with while recording his new album, All Maps Welcome.

"We rented the Paramour Estate in LA. It's an old Italian villa, incredibly beautiful and had all this spooky history. Lots of weird stuff happened, like pianos playing in the middle of the night, strange people would walk past us in the house and we'd find out later that it was someone who'd died years before. It was scary at first, but we learned to ignore it and just get on with it."

Geographically, lyrically, ghosts seem to hover around McRae's music. Before he had even released his self-titled debut in 2000, Scott Walker invited him to play the Meltdown Festival. The follow-up, Just like Blood, appeared in 2003 and both albums are paeans to introspection. McRae deals in equal measures of lovelorn ire and philosophical rumination, and he's not averse to throwing in metaphors like: "This train don't stop at the stations of the cross."

McRae's parents were vicars and he sang as a child in the church choir, but he's keen to point out that any religious references or spirituality in his music have nothing to do with that. "I would hope that all music on some level is spiritual, because that's the whole point of making music. I use certain religious metaphors, not because of my background, but because they're part of every day language and they're an immediate shortcut to people's intellect or personal morality. It's vivid language."

His lyrics are not for the faint-hearted, and have attracted as much praise as accusations of twee earnestness. Mostly they're plain melancholic. Because they're not diluted Hallmark verses, he's been likened to Morrissey. McRae's lyrics have none of that singer's humour, but they're memorable in a way most pop pap narratives aren't.

"For me, songwriting is a chance to say something, and if you mess up the lyrics, you're not going to capture anyone's imagination. The first thing I notice when I hear a song is the voice and the emotion behind it. Then I'll hone in on the melody and, after that, the words should paint a picture. I want to try and create some sort of magic with the words alone."

On the first two albums, those words conjured up scenes of death, murder and obsession. The myth of McRae as gloomy fatalist is dispelled over the course of our phone conversation. He tells me, with a chuckle, that there's a slight echo on his mobile and that "unlike most singers, I hate the sound of my own voice".

If proof were needed that he has moved on from the darker moods of his early work, it's in the new songs themselves. Since they were recorded at an estate called Paramour, perhaps it's no coincidence that many of the songs are about love. "I'd never written love songs before. Everything else had been filtered through different things like politics or experiences, but this album is mainly all love songs."

He stresses that while there's no hierarchy between words and music, melody is key in his songs. With All Maps Welcome, he wanted to make an album that was different to the previous two.

"If you're obsessed with melody, it can be hard not to fall into the trap of sameness that a lot of singers fall into. I wanted to write something that was immediately accessible on a melodic level, but to twist it at the same time. Lyrically and melodically, I'm obsessed by the same things, but I always want to keep moving on. Unless I try different permutations of players, studios and even countries, I'd feel like I was living on a loop."

The two-fold answer to breaking that cycle included a new producer, Joe Chicorelli (Ben Hillier was responsible for pushing the buttons on the first two albums), whose credits include American Music Club and Rickie Lee Jones. McRae cites Jones as someone he'd love to sing with.

The second strategy was adding a full band. Not just any band, but a motley crew of musicians who usually play with Beck. They knuckled down and the bulk of the album was recorded in 11 days. McRae is quite philosophical about the recording process but practicality inevitably creeps in.

"It's very much in the moment and, if you're lucky, you capture what's going on in that space, on any given day. That's my paranoia about making records: you never know how to get the best situation or musicians. A record is your one chance to do it and you have to live with the results forever, so it's quite terrifying."

Even more so than the ubiquitous studio ghosts then? "Definitely."

Along the way, Tom McRae has picked up comparisons to some stalwarts of the singer-songwriter genre. Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley were mentioned. McRae is flattered to be grouped with them but mindful of stating his own musical case. "I don't really mind comparisons as long as I'm being compared to someone I admire. This is my third album and I keep wondering how many more records I have to make before I stop getting compared to people!"

Does he mind the singer-songwriter badge? "It seems to be the most reviled genre of artist, but I don't mind it because my favourite artists are singer-songwriters. If you're a singer-songwriter, the press can see you as an incredibly indulgent control freak who doesn't want to work with anyone else.

"You're seen as someone who wants to be master of their own universe. And you know what? I do."

All Maps Welcome is released on May 2nd. Tom McRae supports Tori Amos at Vicar St, Dublin, on May 30th and 31st