Clare Maguire came into my conscious about two years ago with her debut album Light After Dark, and it was pretty hard to ignore the growling Annie Lennox meets Sarah Brightman thing-a-ma-jig she had going on. In recent months the Briton has popped up again on her SoundCloud page, pushing the towering pop theatrics aside and softening her once smoky-eyed, red-lipsticked look and diving into lusher fare, but what hasn't subsided is that voice, and it is still as forceful as ever. Whether she's a little bit '90s alt-pop on her recent single "Little White Lies" or a little bit Joni Mitchell, Maguire can pretty much cover all bases, as this time out she takes jazz standard "Black Coffee" under her wing. Composed in 1948 and sung by many (Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles included), Maguire's take matches in melancholic spirit with Fitzgerald's celebrated 1960 version, yet Maguire puts on a vocal display that is so haunting and mesmerizing that it's in a rightful class of its own.
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