Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea (Review)

Clocking in at under 43 minutes, the album is anything if expected. Much of the lyrical content here deals with the reconstruction of her life following her husband’s demise. Lead single “I’d Do It All Again” was written two months prior, but after an argument, the reflective nature of the lyrics here made even more bittersweet and harrowing by the fact that, well, she will not have the chance to “do it all again.” “So weary, someone to love is bigger than your prides worth/Is bigger than the pain you got for it hurts/And out runs all of the sadness/Its terrifying, life, through the darkness/And I’d do it all again, I’d do it all again/I’d do it all again, I’d do it all again” Spirit crushing material for sure. Tracks like “Diving for Hearts” and “The Sea” are highly indicative of the formula for success of the debut, minimal instrumentation allowing Rae’s paper thin vocals to wander aimlessly through time and space, finding your heartstrings and loosening them with expert mastery. Instead of her innocence from the debut, it’s the pain she’s allowing herself to share with you, the listener that makes the songs take immediate flight to your soul.

The album does have a flaw though. Much of the middle of the recording features the use of a session orchestra, which onstage during a concert tour is magnificent, her 2007 outdoor arena tour with John Legend making her a superstar as her beautiful vocals floating to the heavens with lush orchestration took the ephemeral to the ethereal. However, the same formula in a closed studio setting is nowhere near as enticing, as somewhere in the mixing and mastering of the album, the vocals are mixed low and the instruments high, which steals all of the power from Rae’s phrasing and lyrical mastery.

“The Blackest Lily” and “Paris Nights/New York Mornings” are the two most egregious errors of production, mixing and mastering on the album. Rae herself was the producer of note on the record, and as a rookie producer made an absolute mistake in eschewing plaintive sounds to accentuate her simple elegance. There is success here, as “Feels Like The First Time” is clearly her most introspective and personal, as in saying that she’s “emotionally scarred and can’t think it away,” the dark drum pickups and lower register guitars doing much to accentuate the mood of the songstress. However, for the most part, the sessions musicians overpower and pulverize her, turning excellent songs of heartache and depression into pop radio muzak, taking #1 hits to the middle of the chart.

And that’s ultimately the problem here. If we were to believe Rae to be a cold, heartless and mean chanteuse, the fact that most of this album sounds like average pop filler with dark lyrical content, we’d be okay. But it’s near impossible for anyone, especially someone who made their early career on breezy sunshine love soul to still attempt to walk the line of acceptable mainstream pop and unload deep, strenuous emotional baggage.

By comparison, Rihanna emptied a lyrical and production full clip. Alicia, well, she yearned and exhaled on record. Corinne Bailey Rae somehow it would seem deserved better than what she has here. It’s a noble effort, but again, a failed execution which is sad, because, in a soul pop market laden with talent, to expect more and hear less is unfortunate, but thus and so is the case of this album.