Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s dreams came true (sort of) when Prioritise Pleasure, her second album as Self Esteem, topped many a 2021 Album Of The Year list. A stint as Sally Bowles in Cabaret followed, along with another West End gig composing music for the Jodie Comer-starring production Prima Facie. 

Gobbling up these opportunities only made the day job of writing her third album harder and there is lyrical ambivalence throughout A Complicated Woman. Taylor is pictured on the sleeve in Puritan plaits, baring her teeth (or screaming?) but once again it does sound like she’s having fun as she wrangles with lyrics musing on her public figure status, mental health, burnout, what it takes to survive, wanting fame and then not being too fussed when she gets it.

‘I’m not complaining, I’m whinging in a new way’ she ruminates on opening track ‘I Do And Don’t Care’. ‘The Deep Blue Okay’ also captures the tension between the uplifting music and IRL shrug of the sentiments. Contrasts abound. ‘Mother’ is a Peaches-style prowling electro-pop takedown. ‘Cheers To Me’ is sparkling sweet-and-sour dance-pop with a potty mouth. 

Taylor is joined by guest boss-ladies Nadine Shah, Sue Tompkins (of Glasgow’s Life Without Buildings) and Moonchild Sanelly, while the House Gospel Choir are also on hand to provide a devotional boost using some utterly ungodly language. An 11-piece all-female band will feature at her album launch shows, all the better to convey the bigger strings-laden sound here, like Florence & The Machine without the bombast.

A Complicated Woman is released by Polydor on Friday 25 April; main picture: Scarlett Carlos Clarke.