There's a diminished contribution from multi-instrumentalist Gilad Atzmon on this album, fewer electronic tricks, a place in the band list but barely in the music for star UK pianist Kit Downes, and a lot more of her own incisive guitar-playing than before – all of which suggests that Sarah Gillespie, the fiercely articulate British-American singer-songwriter, is increasingly happy to fly solo. This album comprises a collection of original songs (the traditional lament St James' Infirmary aside) with a newly personal slant. Her appetite for social commentary with a sting ("I wish I was a soldier/ A bag upon my back/ Far away, dying to get back") hasn't waned, and a mixture of resignation and venom continues to bubble through her lyrics ("You need a mama and a sycophantic secretary/ Some hooker in the background/ And I don't mean John Lee"), while an aching, Madeleine Peyroux-like swerve has now joined her rich vocal palette of Janis Joplin soulfulness and gritty, Dylanesque irony. Touches such as the Atzmon sax-honk on Babies and All That Shit and the sneaky clarinet opening to St James' Infirmary add plenty of jazzy bite.

• This article was amended on 28 June to correct the star rating