Somewhere in Santa Barbara, California, there�s a woman whose ears must burn every time Eliza �Gilkyson introduces The Party�s Over.

Star rating ****
Somewhere in Santa Barbara, California, there's a woman whose ears must burn every time Eliza Gilkyson introduces The Party's Over. The song figuratively concerns the mess we've got ourselves into, with the help of politicians and financiers - but it was too subtle for this particular lady, who assumed it really was about domestic destruction and told Gilkyson it must have been a horrible occasion.

This and quite a few other tracks on Gilkyson's latest album, Beautiful World, have become even more pertinent since she recorded them. She may joke that she writes songs about her favourite topic - herself - but one of her many strengths is her ability to nail what's been done to others, or to all of us, with unfailing accuracy.

It helps, too, that she is a beautiful singer, sometimes slightly sleepy of tone - and all the more alluring for it - and other times going for the jugular with a chewy-vowelled energy that gives her carefully chosen words all the more power.

With her now established touring partner, Robert McEntee, offering his guitar as a lonesome, crying pedal steel, a choir of harmonics or the means to rock like a bar band, Gilkyson's songs lose nothing in transition from CD to stage. If anything, they grow, with Unsustainable's sophisticated lyric and casually swinging rhythm suggesting a phantom jazz orchestra, and Runaway Train brilliantly mixing grunge, implosion and metaphor - although our Santa Barbara resident probably thinks it was the driver's fault.