Banga

Smith is at her most poetically inspired on her first album of new material in eight years. "Amerigo" and "Constantine's Dream" recount the New World's "discovery" in respectively edenic and apocalyptic fashions, with her stately take on Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" providing a charming coda. Eschewing punk riffs for relatively lush arrangements, Smith celebrates Amy Winehouse in the doo-wop gem "This Is the Girl" and offers her most elegant pop song to date with "April Fool."