The broad shoulders, the taut body, the buff tank top - Cerys Matthews has been going to the Sarah Connor school of self-help.

While the Terminator heroine fought off increasingly advanced cyborgs, the former Catatonia frontwoman had the similarly difficult job of recovering from the hedonistic excesses of Britpop with her sanity and talent intact.

To do this, she got the hell out of Dodge and upped sticks to Nashville, coming back to these shores as a happily settled mother with a far more relaxed, country-tinged sound.

Her second solo LP, Never Say Goodbye, has tried to recapture some of the poppier element of her old band's days but many of the tunes lacked the hooks and brassiness of Catatonia's breakthrough album, International Velvet.

However, the mellower songs, such as Chardonny and Elen, effortlessly revealed just what an extraordinary voice Cerys is blessed with.

Her vocals were lithe and sexy, fierce yet vulnerable, like a panther with a sore back.

This Welsh wonderwoman could sing the phone book and still melt hearts as easily as her countryfolk get upset by Anne Robinson.

Sam Thomson