Corinne Bailey Rae: 'The Love EP'

Apart from the Mother's Day cash-in, there are few things that set one's teeth on edge as much as a Valentine's Day record. More often than not, they're the result of some 10%-er in marketing carefully stringing his bow with the intention of piercing your wallet - rather than your heart. On this collection of covers, Corinne Bailey Rae bucks that trend with what's probably the best work of her career. Where last album The Sea was a confident step in the right direction, it was still occasionally dragged down by a glossy polish that prevented you from getting a proper grip on her fine self-penned material. Recorded on tour, The Love EP benefits from a real grittiness that previous Bailey Rae records been lacking.

The choice of songs doesn't hurt, with nothing here as icky as you might expect from the collection's title. Her cover of Prince's 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' bounces and shimmers effortlessly. 'Is This Love?' takes absurd liberties with Bob Marley's classic and comes out the other side with some wonderfully laid-back, off-kilter heart. The weakest track is a version of Paul McCartney's 'My Love', though its stripped-back arrangement still makes it less syrupy than Macca's original. What shocks is the unexpected cover of Belly's 'Low Red Moon', which finds Rae finally showing off those indie/riot grrrl roots. Her version juxtaposes distorted guitar sounds with Corinne's wrenching, haunted vocals, which bowl you over despite their seeming fragility. It all closes with a thirteen-and-a-half minute overblown, overcooked, wobbling, self-indulgent, absurd and just ridiculous live run though 'Que Sera Sera'. Let's hope Corinne brings that tinge of artistic selfishness and all those rough edges along with her for LP #3.