The ongoing saga of Amy Winehouse has taken another sad turn with reports that she’s working on her next album.

You might think that Amy getting back to work is a positive thing, but the word is that her latest batch of songs are wrist-slashingly depressing affairs reflecting the last 12 months of turmoil she’s been through.

On the positive side, there are claims that this is Amy’s best work to date. But increasingly I’m getting the feeling that this is one artist who’s burning up much too quickly and we (the public/her fans) can only watch helplessly from the sidelines as she self-destructs. Part of me wonders if there’ll even be an Amy Winehouse in 2 years’ time.

The Sun reports:

A source said her skin complaint was dragging her mood down further and added: “Her next album is darker than ever. Amy’s got low self-esteem anyway but her skin has made her want to hide away from the rest of the world. And we have started noticing more and more cuts on her arms.

“Her problems are pushing her over the edge and she’s turning into a depressed recluse. It’s not good for her to stay in so much.

As I’m writing this, I can’t help thinking about how cloistered Amy is compared with Lily Allen - Lily’s much more grounded and has the support of her fans through her MySpace page, while Amy seems cut off and distant. How much of that is her own doing? Or the people around her smothering her? I don’t know.

It sounds like she’s also facing a ton of crap from her esteemed husband, the double-barreled abomination, Blake Fielder-Civil. I’ve read stories in the last couple of days that he wants Amy to pay his drugs bill in prison and that he’s threatening divorce because she’s not making visits to him.

I hope I’m not being melodramatic here, but in my opinion, this doesn’t look like it’s going to end well. What do you folks think?