It’s nearly five years since a 14-year-old Jasmine van den Bogaerde’s cover of Bon Iver’s Skinny Love made her a global star. Several million shifted units and a shift to original material behind her, she’s able to talk about this third album as a “coming of age” – at 19. It’s certainly an adult-oriented, mainstream affair, pairing her with producers who have also worked with Adele and Florence and the Machine. Inevitably, big-lunged pop abounds, and the pure vocals first heard on those early indie-rock covers have been applied to slushy ballads about survival. Growing Pains has an intriguing, almost eastern feel, but there’s more genuine personality in Birdy’s quieter, piano-led confessionals. Lost It All and Silhouette are really lovely, and lines such as “I can take my makeup off and put a brave face on” give some idea of how it must have felt to navigate the more pressurised quarters of the music industry at an age when most of us are still at school.
