As you listen to Jamie Lidell’s hopelessly romantic new soul-pop LP, petals fall from the sky, squirrels flirt, and sparrows follow you around with a heart-strewn banner in their beaks. Lidell wrote the lyrics with his wife, and they’re full of earnest declarations of how valuable their bond is. Perhaps they’d make nauseating dinner party guests, but the songwriting is so comfortably strong and the production so toasty that you’re soon swooning along with them.
How Did I Live Before Your Love is perfection, like Charles Wright doing lover’s rock; Motionless is wonderfully overwrought gospel; Believe in Me is Van Morrison trying on an OVO ballad. Throughout, Lidell’s voice remains one of the most underrated sounds in pop: sexy and breathy, but with an appealing top note of adenoidal nerdiness. He can even make a song called I Live to Make You Smile sound relaxed, rather than a misjudged attempt at soothing a marital tiff.
