Fall for Beauty, True North Records****

"Love doesn't leave its mark on you/Love doesn't leave you black and blue/Love doesn't push you down in the dirt/Love isn't mean and love doesn't hurt." Domestic violence is, strangely, not a regular concern of even the most aware singer-songwriters. Veteran Canadian Lynn Miles has no such inhibitions, and Love Doesn't Hurtis an admirable attempt to empathise with the pain of victims. This is Miles's eighth album, but you would never guess it, such is the soft freshness that she brings to her writing and singing. Miles is nominally country, but stretches the genre's loose boundaries from the standard Nashville biography of 3 Chords and Truthto her impressive take on the great American songbook, Time to Let the Sun Have Its Day. Other tracks worthy of note include Fearless Heart, Cracked and Broken, and the ballad Something Beautiful, which would be perfectly at home in Mary Chapin Carpenter's quiver. See lynnmilesmusic

Download tracks: Love Doesn't Hurt, 3 Chords and Truth