Tiger Suit

Audio Mixer: Ruadhri Cushnan.Recording information: Hansa Tonstudio, Berlin; RAK Studios, London; Sarm Studios, London.Drastic Fantastic -- the spangly attempt at pop stardom consolidation -- didn't catch on like it should have, but KT Tunstall doesn't quite beat a retreat on its 2010 sequel, Tiger Suit. Sure, she's reverted to contemplative photographs for her album art, but Tiger Suit isn't a hermetically sealed sensitive singer/songwriter record, all quivering sincerity and strummed guitars. Fittingly for an album recorded at Berlin's Hansa studio, where Achtung Baby and Heroes were cut, it is produced, polished, and textured, an album with movement and progression. Once the ominous opening chords to "Uummannaq Song" drift away, the song settles into a tight art-funk groove accentuated with folk shout-alongs, following no straight path to its conclusion. Tunstall takes no direct routes on Tiger Suit -- not when she slows tempos down, not when she recycles the "Black Horse and the Ch