“Vine” is a melting point of subtly different flavours into one coherent and fluid whole, making it very hard to sum up, but ‘moody melancholic ambient-dream-pop electronica’ is my stab at it.

“Firefly (War Dance)” has hints of Delerium, while “Ginger Ale” is rather Enya-ish in parts, in the nicest possible way. The slide guitar ambiences of “Blowing Through” or the catchiest number “Row With The Flow” are bordering on country music. There are moments reminiscent of Dot Allison, of Tina Dico, of Cocteau Twins, of moodier Sally Shapiro moments and more. Vocally, there are husky moments that sound a little like Marianne Faithfull. Crucially, it’s polished and high-quality enough to be worthy of any or all of those comparisons.

Soft choral-ish backing vocals, plenty of atmosphere and reverb, and a substantial helping of real instrumentation (including guest appearances from John Ashton of the Psychadelic Furs and Henry Padovani, among others) are blended with a deft and subtle touch of electronica. Tracks like “Prayers” have a little of everything. Even the running time, just shy of 40 minutes, is indicative of a confident, totally unified vision of an album, tightly packaged and without an ounce of filler. Final track “Sold” ends on a high- though strangely, the slightly-abrupt fade in it is perhaps the only disappointment across all the arrangements.

But while it never sags, it never soars either. There’s a strong sense of the comfort zone throughout, few vocal peaks, few crescendos, meaning that some listeners may find this to be background music rather than something that grabs your attention in a forthright manner. But perhaps that’s comparing apples to oranges, and as an emotive neatly-wrapped album of metered musical melancholy, “Vine” has an awful lot to recommend it.