Title: The Sea [Digipak]
Artist: Corinne Bailey Rae
Release date: 01 February 2010
RRP: 14.99


The Sea [Digipak] Review:

One thing more worthy than a truly great album is a truly surprising great album. Corinne Bailey Rae has, with The Sea , delivered a record that almost physically halts you in your tracks when at best you might have expected it to put up as much resistance as a cotton wool bud. Having established herself with an eponymous debut album of dinner party R&B, featuring tracks like "Choux Pastry Heart" and the fluffy, ubiquitous "Put Your Records On", the weight of emotion present on the lingering, bruised falsetto of understated opening track "Are You Here" is quietly overwhelming. The sombre jazz daydream of "I'd Do It All Again" follows next, blossoming wonderfully with unexpected clarity on a spring gust of a chorus. It is defined, as much is on the album, by never quite making eye contact; these songs sound like genuinely private, necessary moments liberated by impassioned performances. It has been well publicised that the album owes the grit of its soul to the grief that consumed her following the unexpected passing of her husband. But while you need not search far beneath the surface to find open evidence of that, it is no millstone either. Holistically, The Sea is a real creative evolution with Bailey Rae walking a line between the guttural honesty of Jeff Buckley and the seamless passion of Gladys Knight, rarely falling far beneath the quality threshold those comparisons demand. --James Berry