(RCA/Sony)

Reserved diva delivers another dependably downbeat disc

Five years after her last effort, Dido’s third album took three years to make, involving several studios and, she says, various cupboards, kitchens and bedrooms. It’s also meant quite a variety of collaborators and co-writers, the key ones being her brother Rollo of Faithless and main producer Jon Brion. One track symbolises all this – Grafton Street involved Sister Bliss, Mick Fleetwood, legendary sessioner Lenny Castro and Brian Eno. But, just as that track pulls off a conjuring trick of turning pedestrian recorders into haunting Irish pipes, the album as a whole hangs together more cohesively, more subtly and more intricately than the process suggests. With lyrics fuelled by the death of her father and relationship troubles, a sombre sense of regret pervades these 11 songs, but Dido’s genteel, folk-ish delivery both softens and lifts the tone, helped by measured, almost languid trip-pop effects and lush but airbrushed orchestrations. Now and then, she can seem to veer towards the bland but there’s no doubting the discreet way she turns tender and touching sentiments into the aural equivalent of comfort food.  

***˝

BILL HOLDSWORTH

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