Emeli Sandé How Were We To Know evaluation

Emeli Sande: How Were We To Know (Chrysalis)

Verdict: A expertise rejuvenated

Rating:

Emeli Sande’s fortunes flagged within the years after her big business breakthrough.

Having sung Abide With Me earlier than a TV viewers of 900 million on the London Olympics and seen her debut album, Our Version Of Events, grow to be 2012’s greatest vendor, the Scottish singer, then sporting a peroxide quiff, pale from view.

A combination of shyness and the preliminary over-exposure did not assist, whereas she additionally went by means of a painful divorce. 

But, after releasing two underwhelming albums that lacked her previous immediacy in 2016 and 2019, she bought again on observe, sans quiff, on final yr’s Let’s Say For Instance, and he or she’s at her greatest once more on How Were We To Know. 

If Let’s Say… discovered her singing of resilience and renewal (and typically stumbling into self-help cliche), her fifth album is unashamedly romantic. 

It touches on dance, reggae and gospel-tinged soul, and Sande has additionally rediscovered her knack of writing hummable pop songs.

Before turning into a solo artist, she wrote music for Alesha Dixon, Professor Green and Cheryl Cole, and he or she’s now reiterating her potential as a singer-songwriter.

On All This Love, she sings of unrequited ardour — ‘you are a bit of bit like me, a bit of Goddamn loopy’ — whereas My Boy Likes To Party is a dance banger in regards to the perils of relationship a ne’er-do-well. 

She sings fantastically on the dancehall reggae quantity Lighthouse and gospel belter Love showcases her imaginative piano work.

Her willingness to strive one thing contemporary can be evident on There For You, a Whitney Houston-style energy ballad that includes booming drums, a woozy sax solo and Nineteen Eighties-leaning synths. The sentiments are schmaltzy, however the efficiency is beautiful.

The album is out as we speak. Emeli Sande performs London’s Union Chapel on Tuesday.