And funnily enough, the most (presumably) autobiographical song, ‘Tabitha, Mummy & Me’ sounds too bare in comparison to everything else on the record and probably would have fared better on an EP of acoustic renditions of her songs.Īt the very least those moments are not as unpleasant to listen to, they actually just seem incredibly cautious. ‘Shades Of Grey’ has an uplifting chorus that seems destined to make it onto a romance movie soundtrack. ‘Only You’ almost ventures into Vanessa Carlton territory with an ascending piano riff that cloys and seems out of place on the album. Occasionally there are times where the album frustratingly relies on overdone mainstream pop conventions, but thankfully that doesn’t happen too much. It feels essential to the success of the album’s best tracks and redeems the album’s weaker moments.

You can completely understand why a bidding war would have taken place to secure that voice onto any given roster. She possesses an inherently distinctive and sharp voice and it’s simply beautiful on every track. On that note, it has to be said that Delilah’s voice is truly the centerpiece of the album. For example, the reworking of Minnie Riperton’s ‘Inside My Love’ turns the already sexy tune into a smouldering one (she even gives Ripperton’s whistle register a good go – no small feat even at an octave lower).

And though for the most part, the production is consistently dark, the songs are quite stylistically diverse. ‘From The Roots Up’ is an intensely personal album with dark emotions and experiences. Elsewhere ‘Never Be Another’ features some disorientingly wiry synths that twist Delilah’s particularly soulful performance into quite a tortured one. ‘Breathe’ is another stellar cut which finds a good middle ground between traditional R&B and dubstep, featuring the selective use of that “nuclear bomb exploding under the ocean” bass that James Blake’s debut album seemed to favour and embellishments of beautifully crying strings. The flipped-up refrain from Chaka Khan’s ‘Ain’t Nobody’ is seamless woven and it’s genius. ‘Go’ set the standard really high when it first appeared the blinking electronica comes down like raindrops around Delilah’s gentle coo. Incorporating elements of UK garage, dubstep and trip-hop, ‘From The Roots Up’ is R&B with a grittier, more thrilling edge. With ‘From The Roots Up’, Delilah, together with a whole host of bright UK stars, is doing her bit to modernize R&B for today’s audiences. Impressive resume considering she doesn’t even have an album out yet. She is a bit of a wunderkind of sorts – signed to Atlantic Records at 18 years of age, scoring writing and recording with Chase & Status, grabbing the attention of R&B / funk great Chaka Khan, touring with Prince etc. It is the debut album from young Paloma Stoecker, aka Delilah. No, ‘From The Roots Up’ is not a hair commercial (check out the album cover if you don’t know what I mean).

Delilah from the roots up zip