More heat, please

Sasha Dobson opened some shows for Norah Jones in May of this year, the sort of endorsement that most aspiring singers would give their eye teeth for. This 6-song EP, Burn, showcases her singer-songwriter talents, balancing between acoustic material and slightly more muscular electric workouts. Fiddle accents season the country-ish opener “Family,” while the simmering “Burn” benefits from some ethereal pedal steel guitar. Dobson’s previous full-lengths The Darkling Thrush and Modern Romance earned her characterization as a jazz crooner, but there is scant evidence of that here apart from “The Day We Met,” a soft number that embeds Dobson’s breathy delivery in a lush cushion of plucked strings and ukulele. The rest of the songs continue on in this mid-tempo, slightly rocking-but-not-too-much vein. It’s all pleasant enough, but in the crowded field of female singer-songwriters, it will take more than an EP of unobtrusive songs to stand out.