“Something in the Way You Are,” with its dubby bassline, clicky percussion and ‘90s R&B diva harmonies, suggests Aaliyah jamming with Animal Collective at a midnight-desert-glow-stick rave. But when she’s focused and firing on all cylinders, Kimbra finds worlds of goodness all her own: “Settle Down” may be a tad cutesy (She asks a potential mate to settle down and raise a child named, of all things, “Nebraska Jones”), but the groove is irresistible-full of glistening vocal harmonies, dusty vinyl drum breaks, handclaps, and honky mouth harps. You could do a lot of name-dropping on Vows (and I’d encourage it-it’s kinda fun), mostly since Kimbra’s voice fits in rarely unobtrusively in today’s trendy faux-soul-jazz vocal realm. In terms of epic vision, the closest comparison has to be Janelle Monáe, an artist who demonstrated a similar quirky, manic fearlessness (and vocal soulfulness) on her breakthrough 2010 effort, The ArchAndroid. These songs are massive-slickly recorded and crammed to the brim with overdubs, as if the singer-producer was afraid to leave any sonic stone unturned. If Vows proves anything, it’s that Kimbra isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. But Kimbra’s not exactly a newbie: Her solo debut album, 2011’s Vows, was a goldmine in both Australia and her home country-now the rest of us get a chance to catch up with this re-issued (and slightly re-adjusted) American version.

If you’re a non-New Zealander, it’s likely your first brush with Kimbra euphoria came from the singer’s brief-yet-memorable cameo on Gotye’s lush break-up jam “Somebody That I Used To Know,” quite possibly the year’s most inescapable pop sensation.

Kimbra Johnson is young (22), kinda-sorta sexy (not hating the Mary Tyler Moore hairdo) and blessed with both a genre-hopping musical sensibility and a hair-raising voice that swoons and soars straight to your deepest pleasure zones.

Kimbra vows vinyl