Spangladasha. Kate Bush, 50 Words For Snow.

Releasing a record entitled 50 Words For Snow on a week which feels so cold it could be snapped like the brittlest of bones is an astute move from the returning, rejuvenated Kate Bush, and an equally apt amount of mellifluous melodrama falls from it. Inspired and underpinned by the oft-overlooked theme of 'la neige qui tombe' (or falling snow), it's an airy subject matter that's dealt with in a sublimely deft and delicate manner.

Lyrically, falling whiteness holds both literal and expressive, metaphorical significance as Bush coos both of a bedroom that "fills with falling snow" and a mysterious "snowy white face" on Misty, the tale of a fleeting romance with a snowman destined to thaw and fade, subsequently drowning any romance and "soaking" the sheets. If she sings of gelidness there's warmth in the inimitable warble, in the snug tones of piano, in such simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking allegory. Thus ambiguous, lovelorn narrative provides the lyrical fibre of the record, its true significance blurred as if seen within some swirling blizzard, Bush at its tempestuous centre, hair and attire blustering like Monroe above the infamous air vent. Snowed In At Wheeler Street focusses on the unrequited, the almost hallucinatory, insatiable and incomplete rapport of two passing acquaintances, Bush's playful vocals dallying and darting nimbly about the unmistakable bruised husk of Elton John. As if the track were in need of greater elevation towards the apex of excellence, Bush croons of climbing to "the top of the hill" to see Rome aflame as thoughts clamber towards the timeless Running Up That Hill, hearts skipping all sorts of beats to resemble the irregular palpitations of an alpine enthusiast. Lake Tahoe reinterprets the whitest of winter hymnals, plucking elements of the overtly operatic and classical from a partridge-filled pear tree before emulating them to engineer something quintessentially classic, while the Floydian Wild Man, Asiatic in twang, is wonderfully, incongruously bizarre. She's at her most eccentric and therefore enthralling however on 50 Words For Snow, a zanier-than-Zappa conversation of sorts with Stephen Fry who masquerades as the enigmatic Prof. Joseph Yupik and spurts a flow of supposed synonyms for snow ("whippocino", "Zhivagodamarbletash", "spangladasha", "shnamistoflopp'n" etc.) atop sturdy funk slump. It's the Pi of the iPad genus, and as Bush impetuously encourages Fry's intriguing imagination as it dances with dictionary-spurning ingenuity, it's the one of the seven that'll most presumably live longest in the digital memory.