lianne la havas
To listen to Lianne La Havas’s Blood is to brace yourself for the magic it unleashes. The 2012 iTunes Album of the Year winner for Is Your Love Big Enough? constructs a mighty throne for herself this time around, dwarfing the one that blossomed with her first bite of success.
“Unstoppable” is the first single from the album, and it melts like a chocolate truffle in the listener’s mouth. “I was like a satellite spinning away / almost lost forever and leaving no trace” she croons as a simple but dreamy drum beat follows her through space, the rhythm guitars weaving a railroad of constellations for her to walk on. A break-up song at its core, she merely accepts the “gravitational pull,” the unstoppable gap yawning between her and her lover.
Each track feels like an autopsy, a dissection of her mind and the labyrinth of experiences that have haunted or refined her. With “Green & Gold,” she reflects on her insecurities as a child that rose with her being of Greek and Jamaican heritage while living in London. Toward the end however, La Havas is “seeing everything clearer,” now that she is 25 and she has connected with her roots, thanks to a family trip to Jamaica.
The songs get more intimate, as “Midnight” waltz into the canvas of the hushed hours. The piano delightfully sparkles in the chorus while La Havas describes the sensation of feeling like she’s crazy because she is “living in midnight,” in the shadows of her mind. Although her peculiarity might make others step away from her, she still invites them to join her in these adventures.
In “Grow,” she switches between a faint storytelling accompanied with fingerpicking to a meteoric drum. Her voice overflows, saying “turn up the love / turn up and watch it sing / as we grow” like an incantation.
“What You Don’t Do” is a definite summer jam, complete with a groovy vibe and La Havas’s soulful voice. While this song beams with the promise of love, “Tokyo” burns dimly with the promise of loneliness. She sees herself reflected in the city, neither here nor there, cocooned in neon and constantly moving.
Blood is not just an autobiographical album, but a mere glimpse of what’s to come. As “Never Get Enough” shows, La Havas is capable of orchestrating a hard rock piece and still able to maintain the poetic brilliance that has made her a golden presence in music. On Blood, La Havas is a chameleon and an enchantress. It’s clear that she has just started her journey and she is just waiting to unleash herself onto the world.
