At the risk of misjudging Cold Specks based on her phone demeanour, one might conclude the singer isn’t comfortable taking the spotlight at parties.

Known off-stage as Al Spx, she’s certainly pleasant enough, happily discussing everything from how Jack White’s Third Man Records headquarters in Nashville is horribly overrated to how long it takes to get to Tofino from Vancouver. But one also gets the sense she’s more than a little on the reserved side, to the point where there’s not a lot of uncontrolled emotion during the interview.

Some people love the sound of their own voice almost as much as they’re overimpressed with their accomplishments. Spx, who has just released her sophomore album, Neuroplasticity, isn’t one of them, and is evidently more comfortable letting the art speak for itself.

That the currently Montreal-based artist isn’t overly willing to trumpet her own genius made things somewhat challenging when she surfaced in 2012 with her debut, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion. Some artists get a while to figure things out. For Cold Specks, everything was pretty much immediate, with journalists falling hard for her out-of-left-field debut. During her teen years, the critically lauded singer was an Etobicoke, Ontario–raised nobody who never started a band because she didn’t know anyone. Then, at 21, she was a budding celebrity whom everyone wanted a piece of.

Speaking from a Nashville tour stop, Spx admits that she didn’t anticipate all the interest that accompanied the release of I Predict a Graceful Expulsion.

“No, not at all,” she says, on her cellphone from a tour van. “But it was nice when it came.”

Less enjoyable was having to answer the same questions over and over about her back story. Spx was born to religious, blue-collar immigrant parents who were convinced that their daughter was earmarked for university. The future Cold Specks instead became obsessed with songwriting, honing her craft in her bedroom. She would eventually drop out of school and leave for London, England, to launch her career, creating a familial rift that has since been patched up. Because of this story, there was no shortage of writers looking to pick through the lyrics on I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, reading all sorts of drama into the songs that wasn’t there.

“I made a record and then put it out, but I wasn’t used to the whole process of speaking to people and answering questions that had nothing to do with the record,” Spx says. “I was a little naive, and I think I got upset about that. But I’ve learned to deal with it. I was just 22 when I made the first record. Now I’m 27, so I think I’m actually a real person who has learned to deal with things.”

The singer has also grown as an artist, noting that she eventually grew tired of having to play the nuanced, black-hearted folk songs of Expulsion during the album’s touring cycle. In reaction to this, Spx has made a dramatic leap forward with Neuroplasticity. The 10-track outing starts with the loping back-alley jazz of “A Broken Memory”, which is marked by a deliciously insane trumpet freakout halfway through. Cold Specks manages to sound equally indebted to the Cure and smoky soul on “Bodies at Bay”, visits Preservation Hall round midnight on “Old Knives”, and sets up residence in a gospel tent for the carnivalesque “A Former Invitation”.

The result is one of the great records of the year. Not that you’ll get Cold Specks to admit that.

“I wanted it to be louder and have a fuller, more expansive sound, only because I was simply bored,” she says.

Sometimes you don’t need to declare your greatness, especially when the brilliance of your art is evident right from the first spin.

Cold Specks plays the Imperial on Tuesday (November 25).