When Emmy The Great says she'll never make another album like her latest record, she's not kidding.

Her album, Virtue, was partly inspired by her fiancé abruptly leaving her to pursue a calling as a Christian missionary.

And the songstress, who plays Oran Mor next Tuesday, admits that had a knock-on effect on the record.

"I would have gone crazy if I hadn't made the album," says the singer, real name Emma-Lee Moss.

"It was so weird that this had happened overnight, and there was no contact after that. It's such a sensitive thing, religion, and there's so many things you can't say because you don't know what'll offend people.

"There were a lot of people on his side, who I couldn't talk to, and there was a big cut-off from me and them. So I only had my information, and was making up this crazy stuff in my head, trying to empathise with him, even though it was going against what I believed."

It would be misleading to call Virtue a break-up album, though, seeing as it is also full of references to everything r from dinosaurs to ancient relics.

Some of that, however, was clearly inspired by the journey that Emma went on following the break-up, where she tried to understand Christianity herself, a process she calls "fascinating".

Emma is an intriguing interviewee herself, bubbly, lively and full of interesting answers. Her debut album, First Love, was released to much acclaim in 2009, although it did lead the songstress to be bracketed alongside UK folky Laura Marling, a stereotyping she has rejected.

This record, however, is an album that she feels takes a leap forward, being bigger and bolder in tone and sound.

"When I first heard it back, I thought it was so much better than the first album," she says.

"With the first album, we wanted to make something lo-fi, one of those classic indie albums that people have to work really hard to listen to. And I thought that was a really negative way to go into making a record.

"The second album, because of the state I was in, I'll never make a record like that again, that was so serious and reflective. So I think they're really reflective of who I was at that time – I was a really different person at those times."

The 27-year-old loves Glasgow, and reels off the likes of Brel and the Goat as regular haunts when she's in tow. Her Glashow gigs have always been memorable, too.

"I've played Oran Mor before, and I love it," she explains.

"I'd move to Glasgow, but I find it cold enough living in London! I did a show with the Mountain Goats in Glasgow, and at the time they were my favourite band. I was crying backstage while I was watching them, I couldn't believe I was playing with them.

"I think that was pretty memorable. But every time we go to Glasgow we have an amazing time."

Emmy's been doing some unusual gigs lately, with a tour of churches taking place earlier this year. And the singer, never shy about hiding her opinions, believes more acts should gig in unusual locations.

Who says a gig has to be in a standard venue?" she asks. "Why can't it be more of an experience for the audience?

"Not that that the music can't transport you, but when you are in a band you can afford to be quite creative with your gig ideas."

Emma's own creativity seems high at the moment. Aside from the album and tour, she's recently sung with Snow Patrol at a London gig, taken part in various read-in protests against local library closures and, oddest of all, has made a Christmas album with her new partner, Ash frontman Tim Wheeler.

"We got snowed in last Christmas, got really bored and wrote some songs, and then we decided they were too good not to record. The cool thing is, we weren't going to finish it, and then we got stuck, because of the hurricane in New York!

"So we got snowed in to start it, and a hurricane made us finish it. We decided that maybe it was a bit of a message from above-"

n Emmy The Great, Tuesday, Oran Mor, £12.50, 7pm.