Five years ago every new female singer was trying to be the ‘new Alanis’. Now they all seem to want to tread in Dido’s shoes. At least Virginia MacNaughton breaks the mould, and on such sultry songs as “Essential Prey” and “Shadow Me” she seems more interested in being Britain’s answer to kd lang. She’s a powerful narrative writer, and you can imagine what a major record label could do if they threw a million bucks at the album and sent the songs off to be remixed by top LA producer Tommy Leatherpants. They’d ruin her. But they’d surely sell a lot of records.