FloRaghouse Records ***

It's been four years since Irish singer-songwriter Ann Scott delivered her second album, We're Smiling,an assured and durable sophomore work. Following an unfeasibly long gestation period, her third offering enters the fray, and if it doesn't shove Scott into the forefront of all that's good and cool and smart in 2010, it might just be time for all of us to switch off the lights and go home. As dreamy as We're Smilingbut tempered with a liberal sprinkling of reflective, personalised lyrics, the songs stretch out into heretofore uncharted territory; there is an oddness here that in lesser-skilled hands would be irritating, but Scott balances weird and wired with slender

if steely melodies and, occasionally, a strong sense of a life lived hard and fast. Not much else to say, except to go with this Flo. See annscott.net

Download tracks: Return to Die, All Eternity