Celeste - Woman Of Faces

Celeste Waite may only be on the precipice of releasing her second album, but she’s already had a career’s worth of pinch-me moments. Having emerged to a flurry of ones-to-watch accolades - she did the double, topping the BBC Sound of 2020 poll, and winning the BRITs Rising Star prize - she’s since been shortlisted for a Mercury Prize, released a Number 1 album and earned an Academy Award nomination to boot. And so, you might expect the pressure to be on for this second record. Within the opening moments of ‘Woman Of Faces’, however, Celeste effortlessly sweeps away any assumptions, instead offering up a fearless, defiant display of sonic scale.

A record born from the ashes of a challenging relationship, these nine songs are imbued with the sense that she herself is still picking through the remnants, hoping to once again find herself. Where the opener ‘On With The Show’ is a decadent build of a track, being brought into stark, cinematic life by her vocal line, it also sets the stage for an album that holds little back, both lyrically and musically. Rich with string sections and sublime orchestration, she moves deftly through the darkness and self-doubt, with the likes of ‘Time Will Tell’ and ‘This Is Who I Am’ emerging from the shadows as triumphant glimpses of light. Where her debut ‘Not Your Muse’ saw her solidify her status as a truly modern voice within jazz and soul, ‘Woman Of Faces’ transports her to somewhere entirely otherworldly.