As a nineteen-year-old in 2003, Katie Melua released her debut album, Call Off The Search. It reached number one in the UK albums chart and sold a staggering 1.8 million copies in its first five months of release. The followup, Piece By Piece, has sold more than four million copies. By 2006, she had become the highest-selling female artist in the UK and Europe. Her rise was absolutely meteoric.

Now in her thirties though, Melua has grown artistically and, it would seem, re-evaluated. For her last album, In Winter, she travelled to the country of her birth to record with the Gori Women's Choir, a native Georgian all-woman singing troupe. Away from music, she has been through an amicable marriage breakup, something she addresses on her eighth and latest LP, the appropriately named Album No. 8, which has been produced by Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Jon Hopkins, David Holmes).

Opening track and lead single A Love Like That has a sweet, summery feel to it, while English Manner, co-written with bassist and long-time collaborator Tim Harries, keeps that feeling going with it’s references to “golden clifftops” and “summers with a gentle sea breeze“. Inspired by a trip Melua and her father took to the Caucasus mountains by the Black Sea, Leaving The Mountain is a slower affair, but beautifully evocative nonetheless.

Maybe I Dreamt It is a particular standout, a simple acoustic guitar complimenting Melua’s rich vocals, before swaying strings carry the track to another level. Like much of Album No. 8, it’s an intensely personal feeling song. Airtime sees Melua dive even deeper into her experiences as she directly addresses her split from her husband as she sings: “I think we’ve given love too much airtime”.

In a press release accompanying the release of the album, explains this line even further: “In particular, the pressure to believe that the love of your life is out there somewhere. And when that story doesn’t go the way it’s meant to go, you’re encouraged to view the whole thing as a mistake. I thought, ‘I need to talk about this because, actually, I’ve sung quite a few songs that propagate that narrative. For what it’s worth, my husband and I had a beautiful relationship and there’s still a huge amount of love and respect between us. There are no regrets.”

Listening to Album No. 8 feels like Melua is sharing these experiences and feelings directly with you. It’s a wonderfully composed album, with Your Longing Is Gone the perfect distillation of that sentiment, a breezy, honest, compelling song that draws you in, while Remind Me To Forget drifts away peacefully, leaving us with plenty to think about.

Watch the official video for A Love Like That here.

Album No. 8 tracklist:

1. A Love Like That

2. English Manner

3. Leaving The Mountain

4. Joy

5. Voices In The Night

6. Maybe I Dreamt It

7. Heading Home

8. Your Longing Is Gone

9. Airtime

10. Remind Me To Forget

Author: Joe Sharratt

Joe Sharratt is a writer and journalist based in the UK covering music, literature, sport, and travel.