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- Critic score
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Jul 23, 2015Most of the album mines a similar sonic terrain, but La Havas excels when she takes bigger risks.
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Jul 31, 2015Blood, is a statement of purpose and self-discovery.
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Jul 31, 2015This work leaves the debut, impressive as it was, in the dust.
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Jul 31, 2015There’s two sides to Blood, that much is certain, and it’s the juxtaposition of these cradling tracks with the gut punchers that really leaves you breathless for more.
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Jul 30, 2015Although Blood only features ten predominantly short songs, the myriad flashes of brilliance render the album’s brevity irrelevant.
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Jul 29, 2015At ten tracks, Blood is a more focused and refined effort than 2012's Mercury Prize-nominated Is Your Love Big Enough?, building on what we've come to expect from Lianne La Havas and surprising us with new directions.
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Jul 27, 2015This time around, that artist has taken charge, immersing herself in soul music while staying true to her folk roots. It’s the best kind of rhythm and blues: no reservations, no fear, no bounds, no parameters.
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Jul 28, 2015She is deft and adaptive, at once inspiring dancing and melancholy reflection: La Havas is always in motion.
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Jul 28, 2015Blood’s most engaging moments come when La Havas pierces through the layer of polish that’s coated her work to date.
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Aug 3, 2015On Blood she largely succeeds in harnessing her instrument to reveal the thoughts within. Big isn’t always better, but it tends towards triumph here.
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Jul 31, 2015When it comes together--as on the bumping ode to Jamaica "Green & Gold," and the spare "Wonderful"--this album demands, and rewards, all the attention you can give it.
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Jul 30, 2015All the component parts seem present, but they don’t quite add up to a greater whole.
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UncutJul 28, 2015[A] LP of sophisticated soul songs built around her exquisite vocals. [Sep 2015, p.76]
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Aug 17, 2015Lianne La Havas has grown up, branched out, written some devastatingly honest songs, and presented a highly competent album.
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Aug 3, 2015The feather-light touch of La Havas’s voice can be deceptive; for all her apparent ease, there are sufficient quirks and depths to her writing, not least the scientific analogies on Wonderful (electricity) and Unstoppable (astrophysics).
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Jul 30, 2015A gorgeous voice, let down slightly by tame songwriting.
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Jul 27, 2015The best of the album is so fantastic it makes me want more from the rest.... Yet there is something tepid about the overall emotional temperature.
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Jul 24, 2015Blood is front-loaded: I can’t think of another album that follows such a relentlessly downward course, all but giving up the ghost completely on the insipid closer “Good Goodbye”. But the opening three songs are aces.
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Q MagazineJul 23, 2015Blood is all about accentuating the positives, an ambitious and assured album that refuses to move any direction but up. [Aug 2015, p.105]
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MojoJul 23, 2015Blood proves to be another mixed bag. [Aug 2015, p.92]
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Jul 28, 2015Rather than a personal statement, the music becomes an exercise in smoothness. Even La Havas' vocal power plays don't translate as an emotional imperative so much as a pop formula.
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Jul 30, 2015Blood struggles to shift out of platitude territory with lyrics fixated on horizons, stars and sunsets, and it soon becomes apparent that La Havas is content not to go much deeper than vague universalism requires.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 48 out of 53
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Mixed: 4 out of 53
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Negative: 1 out of 53
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Aug 1, 2015
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Jul 31, 2015
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Aug 1, 2015