“Sarah Blasko was voted the female artist of 2009 in Australia and with this, her third album, she gets her first international release. As Day Follows Night’s stylish, slightly jazzy pop, produced by Bjorn Yttling of cool Swedish band Peter, Bjorn And John, is impressive enough to make you wonder what else they’ve got in the Southern Hemisphere that they’re not telling us about.
‘Pure elemental songs played on acoustic instruments,’ is how Sarah Blasko describes As Day Follows Night. It’s a target many aim at but she hits it dead-centre.

Charisma is all that marks out a compelling singer-songwriter from the many average ones and Blasko has a subtle abundance. She has the kind of voice usually described as bewitching but she can be unaffected too, and is at home at the centre of Yttling’s spacious arrangements, which set bare piano and guitar inside a cavern of percussion and strings.

There’s drama everywhere, particularly in the smoky Bird On A Wire and the spaghetti-Western stylings of All I Want. Down On Love brings a music-box quality to a delicate lullaby of a tune that recalls Jeff Buckley’s version of hallelujah; Over & Over’s marching drums see it transform gradually into Talking Heads’ Road To Nowhere.

Tom Waits is the godfather of all such charmed, slyly experimental music, but equally there’s nothing here that would scare any fan of Norah Jones or Madeleine Peyroux.

As Day Follows Night arrives here without too much fanfare but it deserves plenty. Remarkably appealing and thoroughly recommended.”

***** MAIL ON SUNDAY, UK