After 10 years, in February 2014, Lisa Stansfield’s seventh studio album is released. It’s entitled Seven and it’s published by the double label Monkeynatra/Edel.
After two years of recording, the album is preceded by a series of live gigs throughout Europe. Lisa is back on the scene, at last, and she is amused and thrilled.
Seven is produced by her husband Ian Devaney, as in the good old days, and in fact Lisa seems to go back to her roots, with a style inspired by the masters of soul and funk of the seventies but we can also find influences from her previous albums (such as “Swing”).
The album starts with Can’t Dance, a very funky song with a powerful bass line and nice percussions skillfully played by Snowboy. The song is involving and rhythmic, the lyrics are easy and for these reasons it was the first single of the album. Can’t Dance has been chosen as the opening song of Lisa’s new gigs before the released of the entire album.
Why is the second track, it reminds the Swing album atmosphere, the background vocals and horns are brilliantly arranged.
The following song is So Be It, an airy track in the classic Lisa’s style, a pure seventies soul. The song would be perfect also in some of Lisa’s previous works.
Stupid Heart is the only song written entirely by Lisa; it’s a melodic ballad and seems to go back even to the 60’s thanks to the typical keyboards and guitars arrangements.
The Crown seems to be taken directly from her album So Natural, the sonority and the bass line remind that period. Needless to say, it’s a first-rate and elegant song.
Picket Fence is something new, in the style of Can’t Dance, impressive horns and backing vocals and, as usual, a great vocal performance by Lisa.
For the sixth track, Stansfield and Devaney wanted even a full orchestra: The Rain is an awesome song, horns, strings, harps, keyboards, percussions and Lisa’s beautiful voice give to the audience a lot of intense emotions. The last part of the song has a huge vocal performance, a true treat you can’t miss.
And here we are, at last: Conversation, probably the most beautiful and expressive track of the entire album, a real masterpiece with its piano and the voice of Lisa that shows again to be a great performer. It’s an intense, emotional and involving ballad masterfully sung by her.
The ninth track is Carry On inspired deeply by Barry White and Diana Ross. It’s the sound track of the independent film Northern Soul (where Lisa plays a role) and it’s the second single released and the only music video of the album
The last song of Seven is Love Can, an heavy funky track that reminds the Face Up album period. The distinguish groove of the trumpets gives also a unique Stansfield-style like in the Real Love album.
After all, Seven is a high quality work that give us back the Lisa we love, a first-rate, refined singer with great interpretive skills. The album contains only 10 tracks but in the deluxe edition there are 4 bonus tracks, the well-known You Can’t Deny It and 3 live version songs: Set Your Loving Free, Time To Make You Mine, Someday (I’m Coming Back). The Seven+ edition contain the additional track There goes my heart plus a second bonus CD remixes.
Singles extracted from album
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Can't dance
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Carry on
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So be it
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There goes my heart
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Videoclips
- Carry on
- So be it
- There goes my heart
For more information on the history of videoclips visit the appropriate section.
