Devotion by Jessie Ware

Jessie Ware lent her vocals to a couple of tracks on the excellent SBTRKT album last year, and now she’s released her own solo album produced, in the main, by Dave Okumo of The Invisible. It’s beautifully soulful and disconcertingly vulnerable to the point of being exquisite. Within the first listen of this record I knew I had something special here. Something truly esoteric; and let’s face it, how often do you get to say that about pop music?

Opening title track glides into your ears, silky and subtly – it cleverly infiltrates you and before you know it lead single Running’s synths are bubbling, rhythm pulsing, chorus gentling nagging at you. Ware’s voice explodes like it’s light years away – it’s power is in it’s subtlety – unlike other modern-day pop diva’s. For example, ex-school mate Florence can sing and she’s going to fucken-wll let you know – by singing ALL OF THE NOTES – AT YOU. But, it’s Ware’s preference for the shadows that makes her much, much more interesting.

Something Inside – a place to go; a place to hide, where Ware’s voice takes full stage is sublime. Taking In Water is heart-achingly good, while Wildest Moments feels quietly triumphant. SweetTalk feels like classic nineties pop-soul that’s been re-imagined while latest single 110%’s production sparseness is counterpointed perfectly by Jessie’s richness of voice.

Jessie Ware is like a Sade for the Gens Y and Z – and I mean that in a really, really good way. - review by Andrew Tidball

AWESOME

Cheese on Toast is phasing in a new album ratings system. I have always struggled with a numerical scale; it feels so finite and arbitrary. So the new scale looks like this :
FREAKIN’ AWESOME / JUST AWESOME / REALLY GREAT / GREAT / GOOD  / PRETTY COOL / NOT BAD / COULD BE BETTER / PRETTY BAD, ACTUALLY / NOT RECOMMENDED FOR EARS