Sometimes—either by mistake or because someone doesn’t understand what the “Book” in “Books Editor” stands for—CDs land in my box of incoming to-be-reviewed books. I usually listen to them, if just to see what’s passing for new musical acts these days.

Today, I got a copy of Rockferry, by Duffy. Thanks to her freakishly detailed Wikipedia page, I now know that Duffy is Welsh and once, when she was a child, she was put in a safe house because a hit man was called out on her famliy. Also, she was elected president of her Students’ Union.

But I really, really like the album. It’s kind of got a Dusty Springfield feel to it, with some wall of sound and some R&B mixed in. A couple of the songs echo older songs—“Hanging on too Long” is only a note or two away from “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” for example—but the whole thing feels like a nice late-sixties groove. It makes me glad that it’s kind of shitty outside today. Here’s the title track: