Verdict: Slow-burning break-up ballads
Rating:
Five years ago, Laura Mvula seemed set to become a huge star. The Birmingham singer's second album, The Dreaming Room, won a prestigious Ivor Novello award, and she became a firm favourite of Elton John and Prince.
The latter covered one of her songs, Green Garden, and offered regular advice before his death in 2016.
But wider success proved elusive, leaving the classically-trained Mvula fearing for her future. Was her piano-led soul and jazz too complex for the charts? Had that notoriously difficult second album derailed her career and, as she entered her 30s, was she simply 'too old to be pop'? Riddled with doubt, she went back to the drawing board — her laptop and portable keyboard — and came up with a stunning reinvention.