Galway-born torch singer Mary Coughlan emerges from the shadows with an album which will stand up as one of the very best of her career to date. She has cast her meditative eye over 13 songs of joy, sadness, mischief and melancholy; and has delivered each one with a voice that effortlessly straddles the worlds of jazz, blues, chanson and pop in equal, sublime measure. The House of Ill Repute (released on the Rubyworks label on March 9) finds her adrift on the emotional tundra of Antarctica or clinging to barren rocks with The Whore Of Babylon. But highlight of this 13 song epic of love and loss is Mary's version of Kirsty MacColl’s wry discourse on misadventure, Bad.

Meanwhile former frontman of the cult Sixties band The Zombies returns with a solo album The Ghost Of You And Me on his own label Ennismore Records label. Like Coughlan's offering, this has also been a long time in the making, some 13 years in all. His trademark voice – described by Sir Tim Rice as “one of the greatest British vocal sounds of the 20th Century." - perfectly bridges gentle rhythms and searing guitar solos. Nobody sings quite like Colin Blunstone, the mild-mannered man from St Albans who became one of Britain’s most respected and popular vocalists, and one of my personal favourite vocalists. But this new album is a perhaps a bit too middle-of the-road to appeal to other than his dedicated fans.

Annie Lennox releases her first solo hits retrospective this week (March 9).The imaginatively titled The Annie Lennox Collection (RCA) spans four years and four albums - and, as you'd expect, is a quality product. It also includes two new songs, Pattern of My Life, penned by Keane's Tom Chaplin, and an excellent cover of Ash's Shining Light.