Barb Jungr's second album for Naim continues where her 2010 album The Men I Love: The New American Songbook left off, but with an intriguing twist. While the singer continues to document her dramatic reworkings of classic songwriters – Dylan, Mitchell, Waits all feature in this new 13-track collection – here she contributes five self-penned songs. And rather fine they are too, especially ‘Till My Broken Heart Begins To Mend’. Once again featuring the estimable Simon Wallace in the piano chair (Wallace also takes on producing, recording and co-writing duties) the rollicking title track sets the magnificently high benchmark. Jungr's recasting of Joni Mitchell's ‘River’ perfectly illustrates her gift for confounding expectations. While the opening bars sound for all the world like a gently chiming music box, once the seraphic chorus of Mari Wilson, Ian Shaw and Sarah Moule kicks in the song gradually transforms into a Glee-style show stopper. By contrast, the singer brings a moving delicacy to Sam Cooke's ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ and Neil Young's ‘Old Man’. Continuing with the river theme, the singer's reworking of Hank Williams' ‘Lost On The River’ calls to mind her treatment of ‘Wichita Lineman’ on The Men I Love, conjuring up similarly wide-open spaces, in an arrangement of enormous restraint. Fans of The Wire will definitely want to head straight for Jungr's take on ‘Way Down In The Hole’.