Merchants and Thieves is the third studio release from Scottish songstress Sandi Thom. The album is the first to be released on Thom’s own Guardian Angels record label and comes with a major change of direction for the singer-songwriter.

Both Sandi Thom’s meteoric rise to notoriety and her biggest criticisms came with the release of one song. Thom may have wished she was a punk rocker (with flowers in her hair) but many found it all a little too bubble-gum and farcical. Personally, I had the song so engraved into my brain that for a while I wondered if I was actually Sandi Thom. It was evident from this release that Thom certainly had a gift for writing catchy tracks, but it wouldn’t be enough to sustain her in a very fickle industry.

Following the release of 2008’s The Pink and The Lily, Thom shied away from prying critical eyes in order to create Merchants and Thieves. As a result this album sees her reinvention from pop singer to blues singer. Here, Thom has really honed her vocal and song writing talents and emerges unrecognisable from her creative chrysalis.

The album opens with a wild western riff which would have Clint Eastwood doing his paces at dawn. Maggie McCall opens the album on a high note and, in this song alone, her transformation is complete. Thom’s trademark here is not the ability to write catchy tracks, it is a previously unknown power in her voice. Songs like Gold Dust show off her impressive vocal range perfectly and gives us an insight into an effortless and vulnerable quality in her voice. It comes across as a truly heart-felt track.

Let It Stay sounds, in parts like Pink’s I Don’t Believe You but before the chorus arrives it has already become a purely Thom original. The only somewhat unnecessary part of this album comes with the title-track Merchants and Thieves which, oddly for a song which gives the album its name, acts only as an interval. Apart from this slightly unnecessary addition, the album is a stripped-down return to musical basics.

There are a few notable high points in the album, the main one being the album’s first single, her duet with Joe Bonamassa on This Ol’ World, which is a stunningly beautiful ballad to which Bonamassa adds the necessary level of other-worldliness.

Heart of Stone doesn’t wind the energy of the album down for its conclusion, but mirrors the enthusiasm of Maggie McCall. Ultimately we are doomed to stick the album on repeat indefinitely.

Merchants and Thieves is certainly Thom’s Tour de Force, and will give all of those previously doubting critics something to talk about. It’s hard not to fall in love with Thom’s own special brand of love songs for heartbroken heart-breakers. Geek.co.uk