SAD story songs will always chime with an audience looking for romance and adventure.

For a performer like Gretchen Peters, in the flush of an unexpected success with her latest album, it must feel like vindication for the years spent as “songwriter’s songwriter” while other scored hits with her songs. Said release, Hello Cruel World, was played in order, in full for our delectation. With her long time accompanist, foil and new(ish) husband of 15 months, Barry Walsh, on piano and accordion and unobtrusive dobra/guitar player Christine Bougie, she cast a warm spell and exuded a natural stage presence.

Her album was the result of a period of upheaval, but her songs are almost stately, woven with quiet inner drama. Peters is often compared with the likes of Lucinda Williams, although her sound is closer to that of Emmylou Harris, particularly in the way she sings. The more upbeat numbers were less successful, indeed pretty forgettable, and some of the imagery hackneyed. But once the tempo slowed Peters came into her own.

Midway through the set she hit on a winning streak. Five Minutes was the night’s best song by some distance, an unforgettable tale of regret, while the late-night feel of Camille focussed attention on Peter’s singing. While the scope of her music is relatively narrow, few can evoke an atmosphere in such a manner, and her stories have a habit of connecting – evidenced by the full-house Fibbers reception, clearly in her thrall.