Album: Lou Rhodes, One Good Thing (Motion Audio)

As the vocalist in Nineties trip-hop duo Lamb, Rhodes proved herself a grand mistress of melancholia, and though she's since headed folk-wards in her solo guise, her mood remains unlifted.

Sombre, spectral and decidedly Nick Drake-ish, her third employs spare interplay between finger-picked guitar and strings as a backdrop to hard-won reflections on life, love and loss. Her tremulous burr is predictably affecting, but you only wish her melodies resonated quite as strongly as her emotions.