Wallis Bird has taken the road less travelled to date. Not for this 27-year-old the country's incestuous, self-congratulatory singer-songwriter scene or the same hackneyed live circuit.

This Meath-born, Wexford-raised singer-songwriter has developed her Ani DiFranco-meets-Janis Joplin sound far from the madding crowd.

Shortly after graduating from the so-called Ballyfermot Rock School, Dublin, she seemed to arrive from nowhere in 2007 with a charming and feisty debut, Spoons — an album that attracted glowing reviews in the UK and earned the singer a devoted following in Germany.

Picked up by Island Records, Bird looked set for a big breakthrough that never materialised. Somewhat inevitably, she was dropped — she and the label had a fraught relationship — but rather than nurse her wounds Bird immediately set about writing a follow-up album.

And here it is — an 11-track offering boasting an astonishingly high quotient of potential radio hits — and a collection that easily lives up to the promise she showed with her first album.

Lead single To My Bones is typical of the hugely upbeat, cheery, hook-laden folk-rock that dominates the album. Her vocals are expressive and strong, and the playing of her band — which includes another rock-school graduate, Aoife O'Sullivan, and musicians culled from her travels in Germany — is assured and blissfully free of unnecessary studio tinkering.

Can Opener is a raw, blustery number recalling Jeff Buckley and boasting some pulse quickening acoustic guitar playing from Bird. Her ability with the instrument is especially remarkable when one learns that she has to play it upside down — an unconventional approach stemmed from horrific injuries she sustained to her left hand after getting too close to a lawnmower when she was a toddler.

She sounds uncannily like Gemma Hayes on the lovely Made of Sugar — and what the Tipperary singer would give to have written a song as touching as this one. Her band are at their best here — delicate and intricate.

A live cover, Yer Daddy, from obscure German band Comfort Fit is cobbled on at the end and it gives a real sense of Bird's on-stage charisma. See for yourself, when she launches the album at Whelan's, Dublin tonight.

Burn it: Can Opener; To My Bones; Made of Sugar