"I am 28 years old," says Juliet Turner, with what will prove to be her trademark self-effacing hubris. "I have sold 30,000 records in Ireland. I am now going to inflict myself on the UK."

Her Irish success - 30,000 sales meant platinum discs and a number one position for her second album, Burn the Black Suit - was a result of covering the relevant bases. Her Northern Irish voice is a little like Dolores O'Riordan's, but less stridently hectoring. Her lyrics speak of bruised love affairs in the manner of honorary Irishwoman Nanci Griffith. And, on album at least, an expansive backing gives her a sophistication of sound akin to Pierce Turner's. As if to hammer home the obvious, she shares a record label with David Gray, who broke first in Ireland.

So far, so seemingly effortless, but, fists clenched as she sings of Manchester's transvestites in Queen on Canal Street, Turner is far from complacent. Yet she lacks any sense of mystery, even when coyly confessing: "I've had quite a few experiences with older men." She is also devoid of that slippery-as-mercury X-factor that would elevate her from the herd. It's the difference between being Enya and Mary Coughlan.

The problem is partly the format. She is backed by a three-piece band who reduce potentially colourful songs into black and white, ensuring Turner exchanges her natural role as an intriguing artist for one as likable but jobbing folkie. Thus her best songs - Burn the Black Suit's coruscating title track and the splendid Take The Money and Run ("I'd have a belly full of children; you'd have a belly full of drink") - are downsized rather than set free to soar. Worse, on her weaker material such as the lumpen Sorry to Say, her voice takes on the screechy air of Victoria Williams.

Paradoxically, Turner succeeds best when she is accompanied only by her own guitar. Her version of I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You is as lonely and lovely as Tom Waits's original, and her final song, the thoughtful Belfast Central, portrays the end of an affair with steely authenticity. If she won't build her songs up, perhaps her best option is to strip them right down.