Life for Rent

A heavy heart can’t weigh down Dido’s second set of elegant, trip-hop-mottled pop. <i>Life for Rent</i> is cut with the emotive melodies and downtempo dance beats of debut <i>No Angel</i> but, written after a seven-year relationship ended, it simply aches harder. With gentle intimacy, she faces down heartbreak (“White Flag”), realises she’s her own heart’s worst enemy (“Life for Rent”) and offers bruised souls some optimism (“See the Sun”). The lesson here? There’s no dark mood a graceful chorus can’t lift.