Copenhagen singer, songwriter and guitarist Laura Pold once let stage fright hold back her musical ambitions. An internship in Berlin went gloriously off schedule: playing in the city’s underground music scene began taking priority over work and study. On her debut album, A Woman’s Heart, the song named after that city makes a persuasive argument for the detour. I would put Berlin among the loveliest songs about the place I have heard. For Pold, it also happens to be somewhere getting onstage became possible.

Back in Copenhagen, she formed the all-female rock trio Going For The One around the beginning of the pandemic. Rehearsals during lockdown eventually led to over a hundred shows, including Copenhell. Her solo debut takes a more pop-oriented approach, with Mikkel Mortensen producing all twelve songs and contributing to arrangements alongside Pold’s father, Henning. After that much experience playing in a rock trio, a singer has earned the opportunity to explore what happens when she gives gentleness a substantial part of the programme. Pold makes good use of it.

The melancholy pop rock of Alice Is Dead and the lyrical character of Back On establish how comfortably she inhabits that territory. I like an album that trusts you to enjoy feeling a little miserable. Pold writes accessible music, and the sadness sits inside its appeal. Alice Is Dead is particularly effective at bringing those pleasures together. Its ominous name might catch your eye first; the emotional character of the music earns the attention. Reading a complete story into those three words would be a stretch. The melancholy itself is plenty to work with. Beside it, Back On gives her lyrical instincts further room, allowing a gentler version of the songwriter to occupy the foreground.

My attention sharpens when her voice approaches its limit. Lost My Best Friend moves as a sad waltz, with a beautiful guitar solo and a vocal that comes close to breaking. The three-beat movement gives the sorrow a recurring physical shape: each turn of the rhythm brings you back around. Against that regular motion, the strain in Pold’s singing becomes especially arresting. You hear somebody having difficulty carrying the feeling. I am drawn to the effort in that delivery, the point where singing starts to sound emotionally demanding. The guitar gets a substantial share of the expression, too. Between the solo and the vulnerable vocal, the song offers two things worth paying close attention to, and my enthusiasm for it is fairly shameless.

Having the quieter songs grouped in your mind makes the trace of ’80s punk in Madness a delightful interruption. Oh, good. Pold has spent enough time playing rock music for a flash of that appetite to belong here, and the surprise is a large part of its appeal. I would happily hear her pursue that element further.

Within this record, its unruliness also makes me reconsider the gentler material. She can turn towards a more abrasive style; she has chosen to spend much of the album being lyrical. The softness becomes a preference with a little more personality behind it. Her experience in Going For The One provides useful context for that range, especially after the intimacy of the waltz.

For all my affection for Lost My Best Friend, Berlin is the song I would send to a friend first. Calling a song beautiful can become a lazy way of ending a discussion, so Pold’s history with the city is useful here. During her stay, the practical arrangement of an internship gave way to playing music, and stage fright gradually loosened its grip. She returned to Copenhagen ready to form a band. With that background in mind, I hear an extra charge in a song bearing the city’s name. My enthusiasm starts with its beauty, then grows through the knowledge that Berlin belongs to her development as a working musician. Plenty of listeners will have their own definitive song about the place. Pold’s would be high on my list.

I am also pleased that the solo project allows her to step outside the identity established by her band. A twelve-song debut written entirely by Pold gives her considerable responsibility for what the listener encounters. Mortensen’s production and the arrangement contributions help realise the material, while the songs remain hers.

The distinction matters most when you consider how varied her strongest moments are: a melancholy pop-rock song, a waltz with a voice near breaking point, a burst of punk. Those choices suggest a musician giving several longstanding interests a proper hearing. I am curious about which one will become more demanding on the next record.

Released on November 6, A Woman’s Heart suits the autumn through its reflective character and melancholy. My preference is for the moments that make the singer seem most exposed. A beautiful song about Berlin is an easy recommendation; the almost-breaking delivery in Lost My Best Friend asks for a different kind of attention. Pold has been through the rehearsals, the shows and the process of learning to stand in front of people. Hearing that experience coexist with such vulnerability is the part of her debut I find most affecting.