With her tassel-twirling nights a distant memory, ex-stripper-turned-blues-belting diva Candye Kane is living proof you can’t keep a good woman down. One year after undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer, the flamboyant East Los Angeles songstress has returned to the studio and cut her finest and most personal album to date. Produced by Kane and the band’s guitarist, Laura Chavez, Superhero, her ninth LP and debut for Delta Groove, still contains the singer’s usual eclectic mix of highly enjoyable blues-based roots music (the swampy hootchie-cootch of “I Put a Hex on You”, the country-boogie of “You Can’t Stop Me from Loving You”) and sassy humor (the bluesy duet with harp player Mitch Kashmar on “I Like ‘Em Stacked Like That”, the gloriously raunchy rockabilly of “Throw It in the Trash Can Love”). However, this time around different emotions do rise to the surface. Whether it’s to the as tough-as-nails survivor of the title-track (“I’m a superhero / I’ll keep on fighting / There’s no way I’m laying down and dying.”), the positive thinker (the a cappella mantra “I’m Gonna Be Just Fine”), or the heartbroken lover (“Don’t Cry for Me New Jersey”), there’s no getting away from the trouble she’s seen. After listening to Kane’s smouldering rendition of Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love”, you just know everything is going to be alright. Let the good times roll, Miss Candye Kane.

• Multiple songs MySpace