Angie Hart's little-girl voice is startlingly fresh with subversive beauty. Fresher still is the way this Aussie foursome's lean folk-art arrangements (spare piano, acoustic guitar) propel snappy rhythms and jazzy melodies. Off-kilter pop, their songs boast a dry poetic suggestiveness (think Suzanne Vega or Nick Drake) – they come across like knowing nursery rhymes for sexy, wised-up children...

Named after Nicaragua's radical Sandinista army, Frente debuted in 1994 with an album of light pop that was about as rebellious and risk-taking as canned salsa, with even fewer lasting effects. Their second album isn't quite as vacuous, but it still comes up as blank as a cat's stare.

Shape features singer Angie Hart's high, girlish lilt – a hybrid of Tori Amos, Juliana Hatfield and Melanie...