ELLIE GOULDING: Brightest Blue (Polydor)
Verdict: Confident comeback
THE CHICKS: Gaslighter (Columbia)
Verdict: Sparks fly
Rating: 
JARV IS: Beyond The Pale (Rough Trade)
Verdict: Lacklustre sidestep
Rating: 
When she was crowned Critics’ Choice winner at the Brits ten years ago, Ellie Goulding had a clear idea of herself. She was the girl next door who mixed folksy melodies with booming electronics.
She looked to mavericks like Dolores O’Riordan and Imogen Heap for inspiration and her first album, Lights, topped the charts while selling 1.5 million.
The singer from the English-Welsh border has since struggled to maintain a consistent artistic vision. Being hard to pin down isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there’s been a suspicion that Ellie was uncertain and confused. Her second album, Halcyon, was darker than her first. Her third, Delirium, brazenly chased pop trends.
Her fourth LP strikes a balance. Five years in the making, it’s a two-parter crammed onto a single CD, with a vinyl edition spreading to two LPs. The first half reflects her vulnerability and growing pains. A second, shorter part, made up largely of singles released over the past two years, shows a more outgoing, confident side — although it does feel like something of a bolt-on.
Being hard to pin down isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there’s been a suspicion that Ellie was uncertain and confused
There are early warning signs. The presence of an overture and some pointless musical interludes suggest a record high on its own importance. Brightest Blue isn’t brief, either, lasting almost an hour.
But, working with producers Joe Kearns and Starsmith plus co-writers such as Tobias Jesso Jr. (who helped to pen Adele’s When We Were Young), Ellie, 33, eventually reclaims her old individuality and swagger. These songs feel like honest accounts and age has lent greater depth to her breathy, lark-like voice.
Opening track Start, an auto-tuned R&B number made with New Yorker Josiah Wise, a.k.a. Serpentwithfeet, sets the tone for some mellow, soulful tunes that create a confessional mood without forsaking the basics of good pop.
Power addresses the perils of dating in the social media age. How Deep Is Too Deep sticks the knife into a commitment-phobic man — ‘I could do better, babe, let’s be honest’ — while electronic ballad New Heights stresses the importance of not changing your personality to please others. There’s a touch of bluster, with the title track an over-the-top gospel number. But piano ballad Flux is more nuanced; the singer married art dealer Caspar Jopling last year, but the track is one of several that look back philosophically on former loves.
The album’s second serving is more upbeat, thanks in part to its unlikely guests. Worry About Me, made with U.S. singer Blackbear, is a catchy R&B number and Close To Me, featuring rapper Swae Lee, is mischievous and playful.
Gaslighter was going to be a covers album, but the end of singer Natalie Maines’s 17-year marriage to actor Adrian Pasdar changed all that
After the missteps of her previous effort, this is a move in the right direction. ‘I’m turning the page on my indecision,’ sings Ellie — and it certainly feels that way.
It was no great surprise that The Dixie Chicks took a breather after 2006’s Taking The Long Way. That record, which swept the board at the 2007 Grammys, winning five awards, was the trio’s unrepentant response to the controversy sparked by their criticism of President George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War.
The Texan band had bounced back in style after being blacklisted by country radio, but wanted to take stock. Having since dropped the ‘Dixie’ to distance themselves from the word’s associations with the slave trade, the renamed Chicks are now back with Gaslighter — and it’s an album of whip-smart country-pop and heartbreak ballads.
The Chicks have been spending time with Taylor Swift and it shows. They sang on Taylor’s 2019 album track Soon You’ll Get Better and made Gaslighter with her producer Jack Antonoff, who has updated their sound while preserving a fondness for Nashville’s storytelling tradition.
Gaslighter was going to be a covers album, but the end of singer Natalie Maines’s 17-year marriage to actor Adrian Pasdar changed all that. Apparently taking inspiration from her divorce, she spent much of last year in a writing frenzy, coming up with the most personal songs of her career. And she doesn’t pull many punches.
Sung with the conviction of a woman scorned, the title track nails a serial liar. Tights On My Boat tells of a philandering man who smuggles his mistress on board only for her to leave her tell-tale lingerie on the deck: ‘I hope you die peacefully in your sleep — just kidding,’ spits Maines. ‘I hope it hurts just like you hurt me.’
Jarvis Cocker’s music has become increasingly esoteric since Pulp’s heyday, and Beyond The Pale, his first album with new band Jarv Is , continues the drift
Elsewhere, Sleep At Night is straight from the annals of classic country — ‘My husband’s girlfriend’s husband just called me up’ — while Maines’s voice is close to cracking as she offers counselling to her two teenage sons on acoustic ballad Young Man.
This isn’t a solo effort, though. Maines’s break-up songs are expertly augmented by bandmates Emily Strayer, whose banjo powers the bluesy For Her, and her sister, Martie Maguire, whose fiddle drives the haunting Hope It’s Something Good. With Emily and Martie adding striking sibling harmonies, this is a powerful return.
Jarvis Cocker’s music has become increasingly esoteric since Pulp’s heyday, and Beyond The Pale, his first album with new band Jarv Is, continues the drift. Trumpeted as an ‘alive’ record as opposed to a live one, it contains songs from festival performances enhanced in the studio.
It often feels like a glorified electronic jam, with synths boosted by harp, violin and Cocker’s spoken-word vocals. But, despite some diverting Jarvis narratives, these are lacklustre tunes in need of greater finesse.
James goes back to Bay-sics with this Nashville twang
Having toyed with electronic sounds on his second album Electric Light, James Bay returns to the shimmering guitars of old on his new single Chew On My Heart.
Sung in a soaring falsetto and made in the Nashville studio where Dolly Parton cut Jolene, the upbeat love song isn’t quite a return to the intimate acoustic strumming of his 2015 debut Chaos And The Calm, but it does suggest Bay’s third album will be a more basic affair.
Elvis Costello has yet to confirm whether a new album is imminent, but the arrival of his second single in a month suggests one is on the way.
Having toyed with electronic sounds on his second album Electric Light, James Bay returns to the shimmering guitars of old on his new single Chew On My Heart
Like last month’s No Flag, Hetty O’Hara Confidential was made in Finland, with Elvis playing everything, and is another hard-hitting example of his ‘Helsinki Sound’.
The saga of an old-school gossip columnist rendered obsolete by social media — ‘the tale of a tattler who outlives her time,’ as he puts it — the track is a welcome throwback to the fiery Costello of old.
Other acts limbering up for forthcoming albums include Zara Larsson — whose new single Love Me Land mixes her fondness for fellow Swedes Abba with R&B strings — and Londoner Beabadoobee, whose new song Care blends crunching guitars and surging harmonies.
Sufjan Stevens is taking a more serpentine route to his new solo album The Ascension. Out in September, the LP is a sequel to 2015’s brilliant Carrie & Lowell. On the evidence of America, a 12-minute single made on his computer and drum machine, it will be lush and ornate.