Siobhan Donaghy

While members of her former band are getting into hair-tearing scrapes in suburban chain pubs, former Sugababe Siobhán Donaghy shakes off traces of her former life as ‘the ginger one’ with gusto. If 2003’s quickly forgotten debut ‘Revolution In Me’ took tentative steps towards remaking Donaghy as a future pop saviour, ‘Ghosts’ delivers on that promise. Donaghy (with knob-twiddling help from Pet Shop Boys cohort James Sanger) re-casts herself as the insouçiant, cut-glass-voiced heiress of eccentric English pop. ‘So You Say’ sounds like Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser retreading the ’babes’ own lost classic ‘New Year’, while the backwards vocals and eeriness of the title track sounds like the creepier bits of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds Of Love’, as produced by Massive Attack. A not insignificant triumph. Priya Elan

The Crimea

7 out of 10