Tracey Thorn. Record. Unmade Road.
★★★★
Grown women could sorely use a riot grrrl movement of their own. Because later life still throws out what a disgusted Tracey Thorn, on Sister, recognises as the "same old s***".
Thorn is no stroppy three-chord bellower, though, having lungs of velvet and actual 1980s pop stardom in her backstory (Everything But the Girl).
This third solo album - "nine feminist bangers", Thorn has quipped - finds the singer up against electronic backings, drilling down into complex emotions.
And some simpler ones: Dancefloor is a vocoder-embellished '80s squelch-fest mostly dedicated to the joy of cutting loose while half-cut. Go is a farewell to a departing offspring; Babies is an ode to birth control, then reproduction. It's grown up but rooted in the '80s and '90s.
- Kitty Empire/ Guadian News & Media
