Hot on the heels of last year's brilliant My Own Company, this new album from vocalist Polly Gibbons presents 12 songs that you could not imagine being sung more beautifully. Kicking off with the massively swinging ‘Please Send Me Someone To Love’, there are gorgeous, heart-rending ballads (‘Not Like This’ and ‘After Hours’), energising gear changes (the bluesy ‘City Lights’) and sparkling mid-tempo numbers (‘Make It Last’). On tracks such as ‘I Have The Feeling I've Been Here Before’, Gibbons shows that, like a great short story writer, she has the ability to limn an entire life in a single song. The extraordinarily accomplished band features pianist Tamir Hendelman (who also supplies the fabulous arrangements), violinist Christian Howes, guitarist Anthony Wilson, plus bassist Kevin Axt and drummer Ray Brinker, who've clocked up countless musical miles together as part of the Tierney Sutton Band. Recorded, like the album, at the Resonance Records Studios in Beverly Hills, an accompanying DVD features eight songs from her debut US show in February 2014. Johnny Mandel, the noted arranger and composer who was in the audience, commented after the show: “They don't come along very often, but this one's a star”. Having arranged for Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Shirley Horn and Diana Krall among others, he ought to know.