Saint Low

On the alt.country scale of one to Johnny Cash, you can measure it like this. If Paula Fraser's Tarnation are a shotgun-toting Woman Scorned with a headful of recriminations and a houseful of ghosts under a threatening tornado sky (do try to keep up, please), then Mary Lorson's Saint Low are her well-adjusted if overly dreamy younger sister, swaying alone at the town dance, confronting the boy who's been unkind, going home to put Ennio Morricone on the gramophone.

Purists will tell you, rightly, that it's not strictly alt.country. The indie sensibilities of Lorson's previous band, Madder Rose, are still faintly visible round the edges, and the songwriting shapes at the centre of these countrified plains and dustbowls, if anything, recall early-Nineties female standard-bearers like Suzanne Vega - had she grown up observing life from the sidelines in Tuscon rather than New York, of course.

The best bit is a throaty and spectral fiddle, courtesy of (also ex-Madder Rose) Joe Myer, which keeps Lorson's lonely counsel throughout - in a manner that would do Dirty Three proud.

While not a spectacular songwriting debut, this is a simple and engagingly lovely place from which to begin.