I’ve been used to thinking of KT Tunstall’s voice as something instantly recognisable, largely due to how familiar it’s become to hear the Scottish singer-songwriter on radio. With a slight sense of reference to those earlier greats of ‘Suddenly I See’ and ‘Black Horse and the Cherry Tree’, listening to WAX has helped me realise that this is one artist who I’ve really only just begun to build an awareness of.

Tunstall’s latest album, WAX, is her sixth studio album and also the second part of a three-piece set. Tunstall began the trilogy last year, announcing they would follow the themes of spirit, body, and mind. As the second instalment, WAX grounds itself through Tunstall’s familiar electric guitar sounds and sexy rocking chord progressions in the first two songs, and by the time you get to ‘The River’, the sense of earthly reality the album seems to be invoking so far is contrasted well by the softer and more sensual side of Tunstall’s vocal range.

This album elegantly navigates the bodily themes which Tunstall is aiming for; I feel like I’ve been exposed to a varied mix of the kind of sounds which I know Tunstall is capable of whilst still being made aware of a refreshingly modern sound from the artist as well. This fluent navigation of old and new manifests itself well throughout, in particularly through WAX’s penultimate song, ‘The Night That Bowie Died’. Tunstall ends this instalment through some borrowed chord progressions and visual elements characteristic of our late star-man, leaving listeners with a sufficient sense of closure to keep us content until her next release.

Joseph Mason