Album: Souad Massi, Ô Houria (Liberty), (AZ/Universal)

Eleven years as an expatriate Algerian have left their mark on Massi's music, in which the strains of Arabic and western influences are more tightly intertwined than for any comparable crossover artist.

That's most evident, on this follow-up to 2005's Mesk Elil, in the track "All Remains to Be Done", where the skirling textures of Mehdi Habbad's oud ride an urgent folk-rock groove, his virtuoso solo skimming the song's surface.

It's a seamless alliance of cultures, echoed elsewhere in the blues and jazz influences of "Enta Ouzahrek" and "Stop Pissing Me Off", and the Neil Young-ish electric guitar vamp that imposes a muscular rhythm on "Kin Koun Alik Ebaida". But if her music has developed, her lyrical conscience remains firm, with "Nacera" outlining the plight of an abused woman, and "Ô Houria" itself hymning the universal need for liberty.

DOWNLOAD THIS All Remains to Be Done; Ô Houria; Kin Koun Alik Ebaida