“You have me crying out, crying out for more,” Jessie Ware murmurs on this album’s title track, recalling Sade’s 1984 hit Your Love is King, which pivoted on the breathy refrain: “I’m crying out for more.” Like Sade, Ware is a sensualist, gliding through her second album with a boneless elegance that screams “premium product”. Though gifted with a power-alto that could drill through steel, her voice is a filmy caress here, brushing past in a deceptively insubstantial way. Tough Love as a whole is even more understated than her Mercury-nominated debut – the electronics more muted, and Ware’s delivery more redolent of midnight-hour isolation. The songs contain a wealth of emotion, much of it concerning unrequited love (though she’s now happily married), but it takes a while to connect with it because Ware herself underplays it so thoroughly. It’s the most chart-friendly songs, such as the swaying Ed Sheeran co-write Say You Love Me – still whispery-smooth, but a bit more “there” – that immediately register; the rest of this intriguing album takes its time to blossom.
