Emeli Sande: How were we to know (Chrysalis)
Verdict: A talent rejuvenated
Emeli Sande’s fortunes flagged in the years after her huge commercial breakthrough.
Having sung Abide With Me before a TV audience of 900 million at the London Olympics and seen her debut album, Our Version Of Events, become 2012’s biggest seller, the Scottish singer, then sporting a peroxide quiff, faded from view.
A mixture of shyness and the initial over-exposure didn’t help, while she also went through a painful divorce.
But, after releasing two underwhelming albums that lacked her old immediacy in 2016 and 2019, she got back on track, sans quiff, on last year’s Let’s Say For Instance, and she’s at her best again on How Were We To Know.
If Let’s Say… found her singing of resilience and renewal (and sometimes stumbling into self-help cliche), her fifth album is unashamedly romantic.
Emeli Sande performs on Day 3 of Love Supreme Festival 2023 at Glynde Place in July 2023
Pictured: Emeli Sande performs in Santeria on June 03, 2022 in Milan, Italy
Pictured: Emile Sande poses for a photo at UK Black Pride 2023
It touches on dance, reggae and gospel-tinged soul, and Sande has also rediscovered her knack of writing hummable pop songs.
Before becoming a solo artist, she wrote music for Alesha Dixon, Professor Green and Cheryl Cole, and she’s now reiterating her ability as a singer-songwriter.
On All This Love, she sings of unrequited passion — ‘you’re a little bit like me, a little Goddamn crazy’ — while My Boy Likes To Party is a dance banger about the perils of dating a ne’er-do-well.
She sings beautifully on the dancehall reggae number Lighthouse and gospel belter Love showcases her imaginative piano work.
Her willingness to try something fresh is also evident on There For You, a Whitney Houston-style power ballad featuring booming drums, a woozy sax solo and 1980s-leaning synths. The sentiments are schmaltzy, but the performance is stunning.
The album is out today. Emeli Sande plays London’s Union Chapel on Tuesday.
