Album Review: Lianne La Havas - Is Your Love Big Enough?

There is no shortage of hype surrounding Lianne La Havas' debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?. The songstress has had a meteoric rise to fame, emerging onto the scene in 2011 and quickly coming to public notoriety after the release of her first EP Lost & Found. During the 18 months that have followed she's signed with Warner, featured on the seminal Later… With Jools Holland program and has been nominated for the influential BBC Sound of 2012 poll and the Mercury Prize. Not bad going for a 23 year old.

But it's easy to see why it's all gone down like so. On Is Your Love Big Enough?, La Havas intertwines a soulful mix of folk melodics and pop sensibilities without much of the cheesiness. She has a memorable voice and style, and is not short of talent when it comes to playing the guitar. Songs such as No Room For Doubt are subtle and beautiful, and hint at some pain and sadness over a previous relationship. However, in a second, she can turn that energy around and create something like Age, a joyous ditty where her crooning voice and jazzy guitar riff go hand in hand. 

The music itself is very slick and well produced, however, this sometimes filters out much of the emotion on the record as it can feel heavy-handed at times. Nothing here is left to the imagination as everything is on the surface, and so the question remains: where can she go from here? It's hard to tell what La Havas will do next, but there's no doubt it will, at the least, be very entertaining.