"Boomerang": Betty Boo's first album in 30 years

Although there have been low-key collaborations with The Feeling, Blur's Alex James and an underground dance single with Jack Rokka, at the start of the century Betty Boo had seemed happy to be a songwriter under her real name, Alison Clarkson, rather than continue performing.

Songs for Girls Aloud, Hear'Say and Dannii Minogue piled up. But Clarkson was always too much of an artist to properly conform, both during her early-90s heyday and behind the scenes. Having tested the public's appetite for her return on the nostalgia circuit since 2014, Boomerang is Betty's first album in 30 years.

Smart use of the riff from The Human League's Love Action helped make Get Me To The Weekend a sensational comeback single, and it's a standard that Boo/Clarkson maintains throughout her third studio album.

Boo says Boomerang is the album she should have made aged 25, and she's not wrong. While the clunkier aspects of 90s production values have vanished, the affirmative earworms Superstar and Nobody Can Bring Me Down wouldn't have looked out of place on the classic Boomania.

Chuck D duet Miracle is the most blatant throwback, a euphoric party-starter redolent of early pop/hip-hop collaborations, while the other featured guest, David Gray, is almost unrecognizably cheery on Right By Your Side.

Lyrically, Boo's persona is ageless, her love apparently still as hard as an 808 break, as she continues to call out the haters. It's all delivered with a bulletproof enthusiasm, helped by her songwriting craft and deft production, especially for a good drum sound. It helps make the attitude of Stop Your Nonsense an earworm the equal of Doin' The Do or Where Are You Baby?

Whatever tough times Alison Clarkson has faced since Grrr! It's... in 1992, Betty Boo is still one of the freshest pop stars around. Let's hope she's ready to throw that boomerang back at us again soon.