Album Review: Estelle – True Romance

British R&B artist Estelle conveys the highs and lows of relationships including breaking up, making up and everything in between on her latest album titled True Romance. Supported by her hit singles “Make Her Say (Beat It Up)” and “Conqueror”, the album offers something unique to Estelle’s repertoire – a cohesive album experience linked by songs about passion, healing and intimacy, all which come with romance.

Estelle stays true to her pop roots but shows a new side of herself, shifting away from her radio-friendly tunes such as “American Boy” to much heavier songs about sex, stupidity in love and getting back up after love has struck you down.  Throughout True Romance, Estelle narrates her personal experiences by exploring the themes of “passion, courage, true romance and bullshit” as these spoken word intros between songs break the album up into loose chapters.

The album experiments with several musical genres including soul, reggae, R&B, hip-hop and ballads. Songs such as “Time After Time” and “Something Good/Devotion” have a pop/dance influence, whereas “Conqueror” and “Fight For It” demonstrate Estelle’s soul and R&B talent. Admittedly, the album does sound slightly patched-together with the use of all these genres and some of the song lyrics could come across as a little bland, however the album still has some truly great songs.

After the end of a long relationship, Estelle has brought to the table an extremely personal and passionate album. While the album doesn’t include much collaboration with other artists as her previous works have, Estelle holds her own in the ways she details these deep and personal matters of the heart. The album takes the listener on a journey of various feelings that every person is bound to go through at least once in their life and love.

Estelle is a great artist, and this album has exceeded all my expectations. The hip-hop and R&B elements combined with the mellow piano riffs and reggae/dance beats accompanied by Estelle’s powerful lyrics prove that True Romance is not just an album full of soppy love stories.

Text by Monika Damcevska

Picture from Wikimedia Commons, originally on Flick uploaded by Liton Ali.