Irish singer Imelda May hangs out at the same intersection of rockabilly and swing where Brian Setzer parked his Cadillac in the late Nineties. Her third record places her rich, pouty voice inside coils of surf guitar and thumping stand-up bass, offering moments of violence (the title track) and seduction (the slinky striptease "All For You"). Throughout, she exudes the dangerous allure of a 1950s pulp pinup, the kind with racecar red lips and a dagger in her boot. But it's not all snarls and stilettos: "Kentish Town Waltz," with its promise that, "you're the one for all my life," goes for the heartstrings instead of the jugular. It's the perfect soundtrack for a greaser couples' first dance.

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“IRM”

Fashioned to mimic the sound of a magnetic resonance imaging or MRI, "IRM" (the French designation for the brain scan) grew out of Gainsbourg’s love of the sound of the clickety-clack of medical machinery. The IRM album project also marked the fulfillment of two goals for the singer: to document a traumatic experience, and to record an album with Beck. Though her co-creator and producer didn’t necessarily know the details of her water-skiing accident and resulting cerebral hemorrhage (which lead to the IRM of the song's title), he somehow knew how to handle the material. "Beck had a way of guessing what I was thinking and feeling without me telling him," said Gainsbourg. "We never discussed these things explicitly."