THE new Kate Bush, the female Bob Dylan… just two of the epithets that have come the way of California’s Joanna Newsom over a career that, as it moves into the fourth album phase, has seen her elevated to the heights of almost evangelical acclaim.

And when you consider that she’s a singer-songwriter who leaves most people utterly bewildered about what she’s singing about on the songs she wrote, that’s some achievement in itself.

Divers has been labelled Newsom’s most accessible and straightforward work yet. For those only discovering her on this album, it will give them an idea of how intricate and perplexing her previous efforts were. Newsom painstakingly chooses her subject matter and lyrics, but only so she can spin a web that is uniquely hers; this is an artist who wants her listeners to search for meaning, rather than placing it on the table in front of them.

Opening single Sapokanikan references everything from British poets to New York politics; Waltz Of The 101st Lightborne includes a random spread of locations. Maybe we’re not really supposed to know what it’s all about.

But if you can delve beyond the idiosyncrasies – and the more extreme elements of a voice that Newsom herself has described as “untrainable” – Divers is the closest its creator has come to a straightforward record. Despite their loose-limbed, unconventional structure, the songs never run away with themselves in the way they were inclined to on Newsom’s previous outing, Have One On Me, and – particularly on Leaving The City, Time, and A Pin-Light Bent – her subtle songwriting talent and wonderful touch with melody shine through.

Whatever you make of Divers, and Newsom in general, she is one of a kind, putting the whole of her soul into music of ornateness, complexity, depth and intrigue. It doesn’t sound like anything else or invite comparison with anyone else, and that’s as unusual as it is welcome.