Providing a chilled-out Monday night of silky-smooth indie-pop, Australian singer-songwriter and one-time Kemp Town resident Sarah Blasko made a welcome, if occasionally forgettable, return to Brighton.

Supporting, Blasko's synth player Sarah Belkner turned the clocks back to the nineties with some nice Tori Amos style piano balladry.

Decent vocals and songwriting aside, it felt a shame to spend the whole set trying to stop wishing for the real thing but instead getting an at times insipid Sarah McLachlan. Still, Belkner's gentle new single 'Time' was undoubtedly lovely.

Our headliner's easy charm and catchiness, honed so well over the last five albums, was captured skilfully in this likeable performance.

Opening with the Bond theme-in-waiting "I Am Ready", majestic in its booming opening chords, the packed Hope and Ruin was hers as her band swayed from the type of power ballads you used to hear in eighties cinemas through to the jubilant jauntiness of "Only One". 

Despite the glory of "I Wanna Be Your Man"'s great skewed pop, there was also a good chunk of the set that fell flat, with identikit songs blending together into one mass of blandness.

Still, the peaks stood high enough to forget this trough for an engaging show of undemanding entertainment.