Alas de Liona falls in love with a fantasy on "Vine Song"

"Even when my guard is gone, I hold onto the ghost of anyone," she muses, recognising her own capacity for self-deception, while her crystalline voice soars over spindling guitar melodies and percussion that sounds almost like a muffled heartbeat.

Born in Los Angeles, the singer spent her formative years in the Mojave Desert, which she left behind to go study in Scotland. She quickly became immersed in the local music scene, even securing a visa last year to make herself fully at home. After the empty plains of Sierra Nevada, Edinburgh must have seemed very close-knit: she was being headhunted by the manager of the Proclaimers, opening shows for Travis, and recording a full-length album with Idlewild's Rod Jones in no time.

That album, Gravity of Gold, makes its way into the world today, cementing Alas de Liona's gradual shift from folk music towards an intricate strain of alt-pop characterised by halting frequences, dream-like synths and haunting vocal cadences. She attributes some of her music's intensity to the ethereal beauty of her adopted homeland, which also influenced the darkness of her lyrics, whether she's meditating on prescription drugs ("Materia Medica") or the pressure musicians face to market themselves as a product ("Promises").

Despite their modern subject matter, her songs channel all the melancholy of a nineteenth century ballad, and she fully embraces their gothic potential. "Vine Song" follows singles "Analogy", whose music video was filmed in the city's underground vaults – after she was granted access by a ghost tour guide, naturally – and "Violet", a deceptively uplifting homage to the liminal zone between waking and sleeping, which she dedicates to anyone with a taste for "disenchanted depresso insomniac beach jams".

For all the record's pathos and austere beauty, Alas de Liona points out that "most of the songs are more up-tempo than my previous work", and she intends for each "to function as both stand-alone songs and part of the album’s artistic entirety." The result is the sound of an artist who doesn't run from her illusions, but embraces their potential for unlocking some deeper truths.