It seems relevant that Lianne La Havas has waited until her third record to release a self-titled album.
It’s been eight years since the south Londoner’s debut Is Your Love Big Enough? which showed a talent perhaps lacking self-confidence and sustenance. That’s all changed now, with an assurance that suggests she’s rightly proud of how far she’s come.
Opener Bittersweet is all the things she does best. It’s swelling, swooning pop with earworm melodies that showcase her blockbuster voice. There’s a retro soul sheen throughout, and a lush warmth that’s eschewed only briefly on Courage and Green Papaya — direct and stripped-down love songs, with the kinds of arresting chord changes that recall early Joni Mitchell.
The prickly, percussive guitar underpins the beautifully written Can’t Fight, while Please Don’t Make Me Cry is another absorbing throwback to the British soul revival of the mid-2000s.
The standout moment, though, is a plangent, propulsive cover of Radiohead’s Weird Fishes, which grows and gestates just as magnificently as the original. Even when singing Thom Yorke’s lyrics, it’s clear that this is her most expressive and confident statement yet.
