The modern-day Billie Holiday returns with another stunning vehicle for her vocal talents.

Celeste had the world at her feet in 2021. Winner of the BBC Sound of 2020 poll, a BRIT Rising Star Award, nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Her track ‘A Little Love’ was used on the John Lewis Christmas advert and her debut album ‘Not Your Muse’ was certified Gold, not an easy feat in these streaming heavy days. Instead of following up on it there were huge patches of silence, only broken by an occasional sound track related single and a live release from a gig at Union Chapel. Was the pressure too much? Had the muse run dry? There were some rumblings of unhappiness over the direction her label and producer Jeff Bhasker wanted to take the album in.

The Union Chapel release gave the first version of the extraordinary single to come, ‘This is Who I Am.’ One of the best singles released last year and used as the theme tune for the Day of The Jackal mini-series with Eddie Redmayne. Another brilliant single, ‘Everyday’ followed – our first Single of the Week for 2025 back in January (though first released as a Record Store Day exclusive in 2024). This one is conspicuous by its absence here. Celeste clearly feeling it didn’t quite sit in with the rest of the material. It makes sense as this album is resolutely old fashioned in tone. The backing is almost exclusively orchestral, led by piano and strings. There are barely any drums at all. It is much closer in tone to Laufey than Raye in the jostling of the modern music scenes greatest female vocal talents.

‘On With The Show’ starts off the album, written with sometimes collaborator and talented indie-kid Matt Maltese. It is inherently dramatic and absolutely epic. It also speaks to several themes in the album. There is some heartbreak present here, and that idea of carrying on when your heart has been ripped out is touched upon in a number of the tracks. It is the sort of thing that could be tedious mainstream pop fodder, but this is much higher quality than the usual dross. Other thoughts consider the different ways a woman must present herself to the world, the ‘Woman of Faces.’

She conveys huge emotional depths with her voice; it is a well that you could fall down into. There is the odd hint of aloofness, the slow mellow backing of the first seven tracks creates that aloofness. It is ‘Could Be Machine,’ the penultimate track that serves as an absolute wake-up call from the slow pace that proceeds it. Suddenly there are drums and urgency, and this feels far more like a modern pop track, though still reserving space for major string arrangements.

It all finishes on ‘This Is Who I Am.’ It remains as brilliant as the first time you heard it. The piano is haunting, the sense of drama intense and THAT VOCAL. Truly one of the greatest vocal performances committed to any track in the last decade. In a sense this whole album is Celeste saying, “This is who I am.” Somebody who is not going to be slaved to chasing current trends, who will produce the music that they want to make and will take as long as they want to do that. Hopefully we will not have to wait five years for the next album, as Celeste is clearly one of the premier vocal talents on the planet right now.