Cara Dillon
Album: A Thousand Hearts
Label: Charcoal
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.caradillon.co.uk

To a large extent, we all know what to expect from a Cara Dillon album - a thoroughly pleasing, satisfying series of typically thoughtful reinterpretations of "songs that just tend to find her", these predominantly traditional but with a sprinkling of well-chosen contemporary creations, all steered by Cara's signature pure, cool, lightly decorated and wholly delightful singing voice and cocooned in tasteful, eminently accessible musical arrangements masterminded and presided over by partner Sam Lakeman. And that's what we get each time, with never a disappointment, if just at times one might wish for a bit of a harder edge to the soft-focus. A Thousand Hearts both conforms faithfully to that pattern and fully meets all those expectations, but at the same time delivers more.

Even though it utilises several musicians from Cara's trusty pool of known simpatico players, it somehow also seems to inhabit a more energised musical world. Perhaps it's that it conveys much of the freewheeling spirit of the Transatlantic Sessions (in series 6 of which, of course, Cara had participated, the experience having clearly paid off, informing both her sensibility and music-making).

Whatever, the various instrumental embellishments courtesy of Ed Boyd, James Fagan, Luke Daniels, Niall Murphy, Jarlath Henderson, Rex Preston, John Smith, Ben Nicholls and Eamon Murray - and of course Sam Lakeman - all set the seal on the gorgeous, deftly and unerringly phrased vocalising by Cara herself. Highlights of Cara's creative reinterpretation process this time round include a fine performance of As I Roved Out, which Cara really makes her own, a refreshing rendition of Owen Hand's classic lament My Donald, a delectably tripping account of Moorlough Mary and a sparse piano-backed take on Taímse Im' Chodladh (the latter being one of just two songs sung in Irish here).

The stripped-down setting also benefits River, Run - which is not the James Keelaghan number, but a little-known song about the death of River Phoenix that Cara got from 90s indie-pop band Suddenly, Tammy! And which certainly deserves wider currency. As does the John Leventhal-Shawn Colvin number Shotgun Down The Avalanche, here given a delicately imagined and highly effective (even Alison Krauss-like) treatment by Cara and her musicians It's here that the Transatlantic Sessions spirit is at its strongest on the album, together with an admirably flexible bluegrass-inflected version of the hymn Bright Morning Star that features guest singers Aoife O'Donovan and Timothy B. Schmit, and Joseph and Martin from the band Winter Mountain.

So, here's something the same but also something different from Cara: another reliable (and reliably entertaining) set that will doubtless continue to score listener points while other more instantly ear-grabbing albums gather dust on your shelves.

David Kidman