Beth Orton: Daybreaker

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

The third album for the well-connected English singer-songwriter is a slow but sure grower. That's mainly due to lengthy expansive, wide-horizon tracks such as the opener, the string-laden Paris Train, the cascading Mount Washington, and the lovely, gently throbbing Chemical Brothers-produced title track, which finds Orton taking her biggest steps yet outside her melancholy folk-pop comfort zone into into grand, glistening electronic territory.

While Ben Watt (of Everything But the Girl) and William Orbit also take turns at the controls, Daybreaker does a restrained line in jazzy-soul on Anywhere, while much of the second half heads for rustic Americana. Alleged beau Ryan Adams sings back-up and plays on a few tracks and contributes stand-out song This One's Gonna Bruise, while Emmylou Harris' harmonies on God Song adds her usual forlorn beauty to the acoustic ballad.

It ends up a little incohesive and is perhaps shy of an ear-grabbing chorus or two in its 10 tracks. But at its best, Daybreak shows why Orton remains a superior Dido-alternative for the thinking pop fan.

Label: Capitol