ANNA Burch may be a new name among the over-crowded chorus of singer-songwriters, but she put in the miles in Detroit's Frontier Ruckus and co-fronting Failed Flowers.

She has taken her time to find her solo path and that journey is yet to be complete – she needs more variety of song structure and tempo to match her sceptical, incisive, unexpected, acidic, self-analytical lyrics - but her sources are impeccable.

Folk, yes, Nineties' indie guitar pop, yes, past Heavenly acts, yes. Confident, bright, often sunny, sometimes blissed-out music, in other words, but she sings of self-doubt, chemical dependence, stale relationships, family problems, emotional numbness, delivered with the slacker deadpan vocals of someone still working out life in her twenties.

What stands out is the contrast between the candy and the candour, the cool and the cruel, a sharpness of tongue that stings but draws you in again. 2 Cool 2 Care, Tea-Soaked Letter and Quit The Curse are the benchmarks here; album number two should be better still.

Anna Burch plays the Gold Sounds Festival, Leeds, on May 20.