If Marie-Jo Thério’s alternately rustic and atmospheric balladry belies her musical theatre background, it retains a theatrical flair for captivating storytelling, rich characterisation and immersive scenery. On the gorgeously ethereal title track, the mid-’70s Springsteen-style passion play “Café Robinson”, and the fiddle-finessed, empty-saloon serenade "L'oiseau de paradis", you can practically see the sunset dissolving in the distance, with the last song’s sustained acoustic-string bends determined to slow the passage of time. The pervading melancholy is undercut by irreverent interstitial skits, but they only serve to enrich the other tracks’ mise-en-scène.
