Long Live the Angels is the second studio album by Scottish recording artist Emeli Sandé, released on 11 November 2016 by Virgin Records. The lead single from the album, "Hurts", was released on 16 September 2016.[1][2][3][4] Sandé embarked on a European tour to support the album, with dates in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden.[5]
Background and production
Long Live the Angels is the follow-up to Sandé's debut album Our Version of Events (2012), which spawned four top-ten singles, as well as subsequent collaborations with Labrinth ("Beneath Your Beautiful"), Naughty Boy ("Lifted") and David Guetta ("What I Did for Love").[6] The album was recorded in the four years preceding its release and was originally intended to be released before Christmas 2015. However, when fellow British singer Adele announced her then-upcoming album 25 would be released before Christmas, Sandé pushed her album back to the following year. In January 2016, Sandé was pictured at Angelic Studios in Oxfordshire putting the finishing touches to the album.[7] During an interview with the Evening Standard, Sandé explained why she took her time recording the album: "I feel like I needed to just get away from it. Being a pop star was never really my big thought—it was just to be a musician. I think the further you get from real life, the less you have to write about".[8] During an interview, she said:
For a long time, I couldn't imagine ever going there again. I wanted to sing, but I wanted to do that in a totally different way. If I was going to come back, I had to know I could be an artist and not a product. For me, it was an accident that it was so successful. How do you go from this awkward, shy person to being out there, trying to protect yourself, but giving enough to get the music across? It's such a strange balancing act.
— Sandé during an interview with ith The Sunday Times Culture magazine in 2016.[9]
Music and lyrics
US rapper Jay Electronica features on the second single "Garden", which was released alongside the album's pre-order.
Long Live the Angels explores themes of salvation, devotion, pain and perseverance, which according to AllMusic, might have reflected the singer's marriage to her "long-term partner in 2012" and subsequent diverse shortly after.[6] Sandé confirmed this herself when speaking about the first single "Hurts" and the breakup, saying "I mean, this was the only relationship I'd ever experienced, so to finally be without him and without the relationship in my life, it took a lot of adjusting. ... So 'Hurts' came when I felt a bit more stable and ready to face it. This was the first time I addressed it within myself".[6] The BBC described the song as a sweeping and cinematic "emotional outburst".[10] "Hurts" features "urgent chugging strings [that] darkly underline the emotions" behind the song's lyrics.[11] It also features acoustic guitars and a choir.[12]
The album was also influenced by Sandé's Zambian heritage. Sandé's father was asked to contribute to the song "Tenderly" during a visit to the country, along with cousins and a local choice, credited as the Serenje Choir, named after the town of Serenje in the Serenje District of Zambia.[10][6] She told the BBC that the journey was "such a big spiritual turning point". Voice memos recorded during the trip are included on the album.[10]
Meanwhile, the album's only other guest vocalists appear on the song "Garden", which is built around a "sparse backbeat weaved between snapped rhythms" and "lone deep bassline". It features a poetic intro and outro by Áine Zion.[6] According to Sandé, Zion's parts were recorded in New York, and the song had been in production since 2014.[13][14] Upon meeting US rapper Jay Electronica the following summer, Sandé asked Electronica to add to the song; he contributed "stream-of-consciousness bars [that] contemplate love, the world's sometimes seemingly indifference to it and the fear of yielding to the emotion." His verse compares love to being a sanctuary, referencing the 1984 Prince song "Purple Rain" and also comparing love to a death sentence.[14][13] Lyrically, Sandé has said that the song sees her "telling the truth, but kind of showing all sides of me this time".[15]
Long Live the Angels also contains a number of ballads that deal with "consequences of a broken relationship, lamenting false dreams, yearning for fulfilment, and admitting [an] inability to simply brush it off". On "I'd Rather Not", Sandé directs lyrics at rejecting second chances, with metaphors that compare those to natural disasters and "bullet wounds".[6] It follows the ups and downs of a relationship until it reaches breaking point, and features "sparse sprays of organ".[11]Soulful songs "Every Single Little Piece" and the fourth single "Highs & Lows" are "big and ebullient".[11] Other songs include "Give Me Something", which features acoustic guitar reminiscent of "The Tracks of My Tears" and combines both folk and soul, drawing inspiration from Tracy Chapman.[11] Further mixing of sounds can be hear on the album's opening track "Selah" where the production features a "miasmic montage of trickling water and ambient sounds", while the vocals include "high tones" and "humming", which bring the lyrics to life.[11]
Long Live the Angels received generally favourable reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 72, based on 11 reviews.[16]Neil McCormick, writing for The Daily Telegraph, rated the album five out of five stars and declared it "a thrilling second album that affirms Sandé as a singular talent". He noted that "Long Live the Angels is something special, the sound of a gifted, grown-up singer-songwriter using all the tools at her disposal to put her own heart back together."[18]AllMusic editor Andy Kellman felt that the album was "built to maintain her rank [...] Sandé sings with more precision and force without overselling anything. There's also more nuance to her approach [...] Certain listeners might bemoan the shortage of uptempo belters here, but one attentive and thorough listen presents a clear justification."[6]
Chicago Tribune journalist Greg Kot wrote that Long Live the Angels "sounds lean and unadorned when compared to its best-selling predecessor, and is all the better for it. Some songs are stripped to little more than a guitar and voice, but Sande doesn't rely on vocal acrobatics to fill in the gaps. She whispers and roars, breathing with the songs instead of trying to overwhelm them."[17] In his review for The New York Times, Jon Pareles remarked that Sandé's "return is lucid and uncluttered, placing all the expressiveness of her voice at its center. [She] could easily oversing; she has delicacy, volume, graininess, melismas and sly, rhythmic nuances whenever she needs them. But she inhabits her songs rather than overpowering them [...] Intertwining love, faith and music, as Ms. Sandé does through much of the album, is a time-tested idea. But it's also an abiding and deserving one, especially when it's carried off with such unfailing grace."[22]
Andy Gill, writing for The Independent, noted that "the more interesting aspects of the album are to be found in less formulaic arrangements, [...] settling into a folk-soul setting clearly influenced by Tracy Chapman."[11]The Observer journalist Bernadette McNulty found that "a repetitive wash of acoustic guitars and consoling choirs dull the emotion, and Sandé is too polite to go for the jugular."[20] Less enthusiastic, Pitchfork contributor Katherine St. Asaph felt that "too much of Long Live the Angels just feels turgid [...] Sandé sings, well and interchangeably, over a dozen tracks of stately but amorphous gloom – the sort of beige dramatics The Guardian dubbed, in 2011, the new boring'."[21] Barry Nicolson from NME wrote that "of course, at 15 tracks long, there's no shortage of saccharine X Factor balladry either [..] Sandé clearly has the chops to stand out in the sophisticated cross-platform arms race of modern pop music but you still wish she didn't fall back so readily on cliché."[19]
The song "Garden" featuring Jay Electronica and Áine Zion was debuted on BBC Radio 1's evening show with Annie Mac on 12 October 2016.[13][14] "Garden" was released digitally alongside the album's artwork and track listing the following day.[23] The music video for "Garden" premiered 15 November 2016.[24]
Sande also toured in promotion of the album. The Long Live the Angels Tour included Sandé's first arena shows totalling 40 shows across 2017.[25]
Chart performance
Long Live the Angels debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, behind Olly Murs' 24 Hrs. During the first week of the release, it sold 47,512 copies.[26]
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