Jennifer Evans took her time with her debut album - we're well over four years on from a calling card EP - and time is what the listener will have to free up plenty of to get the most from Works from the Dip and Foul. There are no quick clicks or obvious choices here.
Evans has real from-the-floor-up power in her voice, and she wraps it around corkscrew arrangements where jazz sultriness and even the guitar parts of Fugazi are among the many reference points. It's very much a staying-in kind of record and yet, paradoxically, sounds like it was built to play live, where magic in the room could lead to even more twists and turns.
If you're going to do a cover you might as well make it yours, and Evans' low-slung, acoustic guitar take on Massive Attack's classic Unfinished Sympathy shows a hunger for risk that hopefully will prove very hard to satisfy. It's the perfect closer for a complex and enigmatic listen, where some songs work more than others - but your head is the better for the exercise at the end.
Harry Guerin
