The daughter of TV presenter Don Spencer, Sydney-born Danielle Spencer spent more than a decade as an actress herself before releasing her first music in the early 2000s. You can certainly hear a dramatic edge in everything she does, especially when her voice rises and falls to nail key emotional beats. That’s true whether she’s alternately whispering and singing against piano and trip-hop beats on 2001’s “Blast Off” or channeling fellow Australian actress turned singer Natalie Imbruglia on “Forgive Me,” from the same year. Meanwhile, 2010’s “On Your Side” has the casual jaunt and then inevitable lift of a stage-musical standout. Yet Spencer can play things subtly just as effectively, like when she reworks The Ronettes’ snappy, saturated 1960s classic “Be My Baby” as a slow and stripped-back ballad—at least until the strings come in. And on 2024’s vibrantly layered “Regenerate,” she breaks a 14-year drought in original releases with a theatrical vocal delivery pitched between Kate Bush and Chappell Roan.