IF pushed, would Canada’s Leslie Feist admit that 1234 – her offbeat 2007 hit which was so catchy that my cousin chose it for her wedding dance, complete with all the movements – is her own Sit Down or Shiny Happy People: a crossover success which even those who don’t really know you remember you for even if it’s totally unrepresentative of you as an artist? Pleasure, her fifth album, offers plenty more evidence that she would.

Feist has a reasonable degree of pop at her core, but it’s a melancholy, uneasy kind of pop that, when it manifests itself, does so in a way that’s several dimensions removed from the world of off-the-shelf crowd-pleasers or musical curios.

On Pleasure, any such leanings are balanced out against her desire to let her music breathe and evolve. It’s an unhurried, delicate album, one not built for immediate impact, but further investigation. It’ll probably need more than one listen before it starts to take hold.

None of which damages its quality. On Century, featuring guest loucheness from Jarvis Cocker, and the title track, Feist impressively channels different sides of PJ Harvey: the thumping rocker and the alt-rock jab. But elsewhere, Pleasure is a more slow-building piece of work, setting aside the mischievous diversions into electronica and jazz scattered across her earlier albums in favour of cohesive, if slightly opaque, introspection.

Even so, the likes of I Wish I Didn’t Miss You, Any Party and The Wind come with a tenderness and a vocal allure – Feist really is a very good singer –capable of striking a chord with most audiences.

Confessional in a sometimes confusing way, questioning without being bitter, lonely without being self-pitying, and edgy without being cold, Pleasure wouldn’t have been made if its creator didn’t feel she had something to say; she considered quitting music in the six-year gap between this album and its predecessor, Metals. She made the right call.