★★★★☆
(Warner Bros)
Even Lianne La Havas must be getting bored of banging on about Prince popping round her Leyton flat well over a year ago. Now, though, the Greek/Jamaican Londoner might just have something else to talk about. A huge step forwards from Is Your Love Big Enough?, her patchy 2012 debut, Blood incorporates the intimate drama of Adele, the finger-clicking streetsmarts of Amy Winehouse and the lush bleakness of Sade. But, for all that, she’s no clone. Tokyo and Midnight are slices of exquisitely fashioned loneliness and while Unstoppable does its best to sound upbeat, the rue remains overpowering. She’s still only 25, but in the best sense she sounds much older: Blood is always accessible but there are layers of depth to unpeel and this is determinedly adult music for those who have lived lives, albeit not always successfully.
