Album: Meshell Ndegeocello, Devil's Halo (Downtown)

An eighth album by the bassist-songwriter you just can't categorise.

There's a reason for that. She has an investment in the idea of the mercurial, fugitive, uncatchable talent that just won't quit. Here she is in the alt.rock idiom. The music is considered, solemn and rather stagey, in the sense that it enacts its texts but does not invite participation from the floor. Meshell's is a tenderly bitter world and, on the evidence of this, she might get on rather well with Morrissey. Get on? Well, you know what I mean.