To describe June Tabor as simply a folk singer is to ignore her achievements. The four-CD retrospective Always, released earlier this year, was a reminder of her range, and this new album proves she is one of our finest interpreters of songs of almost any kind. Recorded with an impressive acoustic band including the pianist Huw Warren, guitarist Martin Simpson and saxophonist Iain Bellamy, it's a selection of songs that are mostly sad, mostly about love, and range from the middle ages to present day.

The starting point is traditional material, but her treatment of The Banks of the Sweet Primroses shows how she makes a song her own with her story-telling. A Chaucer song is followed by an exquisite, pained treatment of Anna McGarrigle's Heart Like a Wheel, while the traditional Oh! Alas I Am in Love leads into a drifting Duke Ellington ballad. A thoughtful, personal album.