Barb Jungr - Love Me Tender - HMV Choice

New high queen of cabaret reinterprets the songs of the king of rock 'n' roll. Barb Jungr is widely regarded as Britain's most gifted song stylist, a true renaissance woman with her heart and roots in alternative cabaret and her head in all manner of intellectual endeavour. Following on from her acclaimed collections of French chanson and classic Bob Dylan comes this beguiling sojourn in the steps of one Elvis Aaron Presley.

Jungr displays a fearless originality in rescuing the man's legacy from all those legions of second-rate imitators, actively seeking out the unexplored nuance in songs long since rendered virtually meaningless through sheer familiarity. Lyrics are eloquently enunciated rather than laboured over, while the stark arrangements reveal a haunting dimension of lost innocence.

Although Jungr abandons her restraint for a thrillingly soulful In the Ghetto and unexpectedly declamatory I Shall be Released, for the most part she leaves the listener hanging pensively on her every utterance.