“Some might say she’s lucky, all her dreams come true, but the problem is that most of them are nightmares,” she sings to us in the first song. A woman in a later track gets shot. Things in Kate Mann land are rough, and she tells us about them in a firm, swinging voice that buckles a little with empathy. That US country music sound of hardships defied and endured. Singing “La Llorona”, she smacks the double-l down like a pack of cards on a table. It’s almost like flirting. Mann plays guitar, other musicians provide fiddle, bass, and sundries. A swaying, strong-jawed album. Trivia: the musician used to be a teacher. I imagine students looking up at this dreadlocked vision tucking into a song about a corpse: “Miss Mann?”

• Multiple songs MySpace