The luscious tones of the intoxicating voice of South London’s finest new soul singer, Lianne La Havas, are reminiscent of a once-glorious Sade. A compendium of introspective prose, ‘Is Your Love Big Enough?’ La Havas’ fantastic debut offering, is a beautiful and melancholic collection of retrospective prose on relationships at their most exquisite, to their confusing, bittersweet end. The demeanor of life thoroughly explored, as well as a profound wisdom on all-encompassing, maddening, love transcends La Havas’ young age.

La Havas takes on the role of narrator amidst a flurry of sound and against an indesinent fusion of soothing soul and funky folk, which serve as embellishment for her bitterly harsh and honest lyrics. The chic and choppy guitar rifts, implicative of 1920s Paris, paint the backdrop to a debacle of a mysterious and inexplicably irresistible older man in ‘Age’.

Soft drums and deep piano chords weave amongst striking self-confessions (‘You’re lost and found, falling out, my faith broken down’) within the exquisite ‘Lost & Found,’ which depicts the vulnerability of a lover who has lost. Cataloging the dizzying heights of love in a fervent rendition of Scott Matthews ‘Elusive,’ La Havas divulges the tantalizing tale of anyone who has ever crumpled under the overwhelming exhaustion of infatuation.

Just piano and vocals are used to portray a wretched sadness in the distressing ‘Gone.’ Wistful lyrics allude to the beguiling nature of love, ‘You just look ridiculous in your disguise, now I found you out, this is my last goodbye.’ An undertone of frustration and self doubt subtly intertwine to create an impression of disillusionment with the concept of love: ‘Love is not blind, it’s just deaf and it is dumb. So how could I fool myself thinking you were the one?’  Within this simple song La Havas congregates every emotion that comes alongside a broken heart that mistakenly placed its faith in the wrong individual.

La Havas harbors an old soul, intertwined with a deep understanding of the world around her. This album is good for your soul. With each song a therapeutic dose is unleashed onto the listener, easing the pain of a broken heart and soothing the melancholy of the harsher edges of life. To reference La Havas’ fitting exclamation: ‘It’s just the beginning, sing when you’re winning.’ There is no doubt that this girl is set for big stages, and that this is indeed just the beginning. Try to catch her at an intimate venue in her upcoming European tour, or as she supports the great John Legend throughout his current US tour. And so to address this soul songstress directly: Lianne please do keep on singing, you are tremendously winning.

Album Highlights: Lost & Found, Everything Everything, Forget.

Image Courtesy of  Kmeron

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