Record (Iex)

"I think I've always written songs which chronicle the milestones of a woman's life," she says. "Different ages and stages, different realities not often discussed in pop lyrics. If 2010'sLove and It's Oppositewas my mid-life album-full of divorce and hormones-then this album represents that sense of liberation that comes in the aftermath, from embarking on a whole new 'no f***s given' phase of life." OnRecord, the synth-driven tracks arrive and leave with a punchy sub-three-minute directness. The album packs an eloquent punch. As ever, the personal has often been political in Tracey Thorn's work. Across four decades, her songs and writing have offered up a clear-eyed woman's view of the immediate world around her, from the acerbic teen love songs of her first early '80s band Marine Girls through sixteen years as one-half of articulate multimillion-selling duo Everything But The Girl, to her recent acclaimed memoirs and journalism.