The premise is ruthless in its economy. A wife confronts the woman who slept with her husband and declines every available humiliation. She doesn't beg, she doesn't break, and she doesn't shrink. She does the sums instead. On one side stands the sugar-daddy fantasy, shiny and short-lived. On the other stands a roaming man who will, in due course, leave his new prize exactly as he left the old one. Exzenya doesn't scream this at anybody. She observes it, and the observation does more damage than a thrown vase ever could.

The tempo helps. It is mid-pace, unhurried, with enough air between the notes for the lyric to land and linger. Too many modern singles are built like panic attacks, all compression and fear of the skip button. This one has the confidence of a woman leaning against a doorframe, in no rush at all, because she has already won. Bass and lead vocal form the floor of the whole affair, and the rest is furnished sparingly. Nothing is there to impress you. Everything is there to serve the story.

That is the roots-rock creed, and Exzenya keeps it. The blues sits in the chords even as the guitars flex, a debt to the porch-bound tradition of The Band, early Petty and Mellencamp, those writers who sounded like people talking and not like algorithms humming. The sound is polished without being laminated. A live-band looseness survives the studio, and in a year when plenty of records feel assembled by software, a song that sounds like human beings playing in a room is an act of quiet rebellion.

Then comes the voice, which is the real weapon. Exzenya sings with the sly, lived-in authority of someone who has stopped performing hurt and started enjoying herself. The sass is thick but never cartoonish, the sort of relish that comes from surviving the thing, not from imagining it. Her phrasing lets the barbs arrive late, like a smile that takes a moment to reach the eyes. The note underneath is relief, and it is more interesting than rage. Rage is common. Relief, the giddy lightness of a lock turning from the inside, is rarer and far more dangerous.

The chorus, as promised, sticks. It is plain, singable and built for shouting back at a car windscreen, yet it keeps its blues backbone and never slides into mere catchiness. Karma gets a hook, which is no small feat, since karma is usually a concept for greetings cards.

Fans of Dorothy's swagger, the smoky strut of ZZ Ward or Kaleo's weathered gravitas will recognise the neighbourhood. Exzenya, though, doesn't move in by borrowing anyone's furniture. She arrives with her own, and she's brought a long memory and a longer smile.

"You thought you were taking my life," runs the song's own provocation. "You set me free." After three minutes and twenty-four seconds, you trust her completely and want to buy her a drink.