Suzanne Vega’s last album, 2016’s Lover, Beloved: Songs From An Evening With Carson McCullers, featured numbers written half-a-decade earlier for a stage show, so this 10th long-player is the New York singer’s first new material since 2014.

Produced by long-time collaborator and former Bowie sidekick, Irish guitarist Gerry Leonard, Flying With Angels proves that the 65-year-old New York songstress has lost none of her edge, whether she’s waxing lyrical about freedom of speech in the age of social media (‘Speakers’ Corner’); delivering a broken-hearted ballad about the war in Ukraine (‘Last Train From Mariupol’); or getting her garage-rock on with the spiky single, ‘Rats’.

The infectious ‘Chambermaid’ is a perfect example of the laid-back rhythm guitar and vocals Vega has made a career from, while both melody and vocal owe a debt to Dylan’s ‘I Want You’. The mid-paced soul of ‘Love Thief’ is not unlike Joan As Police Woman at her finest, while the closing ‘Galway’ is a winsome ballad about the possibility of love in the City of The Tribes.

The uber-catchy ‘Lucinda’, complete with harsh guitar sound, is a brilliant ode to her spiritual sibling, the “Dusty Springfield of the south”, Lucinda Williams: “I love her cos she’s blunt and humble.” Just like Vega herself.

• Out now.