Whether it's the dramatic percussion flourishes of the folk-like album opener ‘One More Dance’ or the shifting time feels and intricate vocal layerings of ‘Little Things’, this fourth album from vocalist Juliet Kelly completely seduces the senses. All but one of the songs are based on favourite books, from the music box feel of the Narniainspired ‘Magic & Mystery’ to The Color Purple-inspired ‘Forbidden Fruit’. Propelled forwards by Oli Hayhurst's deeply grooving 7/4 ostinato, with pianist Nick Ramm contributing a fine solo, ‘Devilish Disguise’, like ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, is inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Over a sustained bass pedal, Kelly's wordless vocalise in ‘Ghosts’ (mixed by Seb Rochford) is a standout, while ‘All He'll Ever Need’ illustrates the singer's facility for penning the catchiest of vocal hooks. Subtle changes of texture include the plangent timbre of the accordion in the sorrowing waltz ‘No One Can Tell’. If Kelly has transformed pop material before – ’Your Love Is King’ on her 2003 debut Aphrodite's Child (2003) plus covers of Soul II Soul (‘Back to Life’), Soft Cell (‘Tainted Love’) and The Eurythmics (‘Here Comes The Rain Again’) on her 2009 album Licorice Kiss – nothing quite prepares you for the wonderfully strange take on ‘Wuthering Heights’, the album's sole cover.