As Corrine Bailey Rae will no doubt attest, the death of a loved one is arguably the hardest thing to deal with in life. In 2008, the young Leeds-born singer's life was shattered when she woke up to discover that her musician husband, Jim, had died on the sofa from an accidental drug overdose. The experience was so traumatic that it drained her of the will to carry on in life. As she said: "I didn't do anything for a year. I didn't go anywhere. I just sat at the kitchen table."
After a year passed, however, the creative paralysis that had prevented the singer/songwriter from continuing her career gradually dissolved and was replaced by a wish to reflect on her experiences via music-making. What resulted was Bailey Rae's about-to-be-released second album, 'The Sea,' the long-awaited follow up to her acclaimed eponymous studio debut from 2006. Given the tragic event that shaped its genesis, 'The Sea' must have been a difficult album for Bailey Rae to bring to life – and yet it probably proved a rewardingly cathartic experience, allowing her to try and make sense of her husband's loss through the medium of song.
It's immediately noticeable that there's a deeper soulfulness to Bailey Rae's voice on this record – understandably so - whose fragile yet emotionally-charged delivery and phrasing sounds more like jazz chanteuse Billie Holiday than ever before. 'The Sea' is a dark, elegiac, record but not a bleak or funereal one. The opening two songs, the poignantly plaintive 'Are You Here,' and the melancholy 'I'd Do It All Again' – the latter the set's first single - set the tone for the rest of the album, with Bailey Rae focusing on her husband's absence with a mixture of world-weariness, fortitude and perseverance. The arrangements are more an engaging hybrid of folk and indie pop than generic soul.
Other standouts on the album include 'Feels Like The First Time' – its lush, retro-style arrangement has echoes of Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' - the driving, infectious, rock-inflected 'The Blackest Lily' and the gentle 'I Would Call It Beauty.' 'Paris Nights/New York Mornings' is sprightly and upbeat while the closing title track, reflects on another of Bailey Rae's family tragedies: the death of her grandfather at sea as watched by her mother from the shore many years ago.
But it's not all doom and gloom – 'The Sea' is a very positive album in which a young singer is trying to make sense of a terrible tragedy. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the album, though, is that Corinne Bailey Rae's suffering and soul-bearing will ultimately be marketed as entertainment for the masses – that, of course, is the price a pop singer has to pay when he or she bares their soul and their innermost feelings so nakedly in public. But that's no great hardship, perhaps, given what Corinne Bailey Rae has already endured.
