POP/ROCK
Corinne Bailey Rae, "The Sea" (Capitol)
Rae's sometimes hard to absorb but deeply rewarding second album is about loss and getting over it. Her husband, saxophonist Jason Rae, accidentally overdosed on methadone and alcohol in March 2008. Rae grieved for him by doing nothing for months, then returned to making music.
Although she's known for the kind of delicacy that's often dismissed as "lite," Rae searches for the pinpricks and love sighs that intensify gentle emotions. On "The Sea," her carefulness complicates what might have been a blunt expression of pain. The CD begins with Rae's carefully plucked guitar and the line, "He's a real live wire." What a way to invoke a ghost. That first song, "Are You Here," captures the way that a dreaming mind can create happiness and how returning to reality is a landing with a thud. Several songs, including "Love's on Its Way" and "Diving for Hearts," unfold less neatly. Tapping into elements of soul, jazz and even heavy rock, Rae stubbornly shapes these songs to conform to her wandering, insistent thoughts.
Although Rae is famous for bouncy singles such as "Put Your Records On," she told interviewers that she hoped her next work would be more akin to the avant-pop of critical darling Joanna Newsom. It's cruel to say that her personal calamity might have bought her the chance to take that risk, but it does seem possible. "The Sea" isn't a perfect album. The catchiest song, "Paris Nights / New York Mornings," sounds like an outtake from Rae's debut. "Paper Dolls" seems similarly out of place -- it's a rocker invoking Rae's post-punk youth that distracts from the thornier, more expansive songs around it. Still, "The Sea" is a step toward something -- Rae's inner peace, and her next artistic breakthrough -- that has its own considerable rewards.
ANN POWERS, LOS ANGELES TIMES
