Given Beth Orton's track record for collaborations with the likes of William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers, the news that Jim O'Rourke - Wilco collaborator and sometime Sonic Youth member - was at the controls of Comfort of Strangers strongly suggested that envelopes were going to be pushed. Far from it. The envelopes stay exactly where they should be, and Orton delivers her purest, folkiest album yet. We could be back in 1970, and you half expect Carole King to pop in and add a backing vocal. The drawback of this acoustic, no-gimmicks approach is that the whole album rests on Orton's voice (which is good, but lacks dynamics) and songwriting (which is heartfelt, but only occasionally inspired). The result is pretty, but only rarely - Shadow of a Doubt, Conceived - demands your full attention.
EMI