by Imelda May
If there's an overlap between burlesque and rockabilly, Dubliner Imelda May Clabby embodies it. Visually, she's all skintight leopard-print and red lips; musically, she throws her considerable energies into a sharp mix of rockabilly, jazz and surf guitars. And, in her hands, rockabilly is a living, vital genre with nothing retro about it. She wrote virtually every song here (apart from a cover of Tainted Love, which has been rejigged as a feverish waltz for guitar, drums and voice), and sings them with heart and minxy humour. Whether the lurid cast of characters in the lyrics is real or imaginary – one is a "psycho" on medication, another lands "in a cell with grey pants and bruises" and then there's the "sneaky freak" who spies on her husband – doesn't matter. What does is that she brings them to passionate, reverb-drenched life on an album that positions her as one of 2010's more interesting finds.
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