It's been almost three years since Miss B released her debut album, the six-single spawning "On A Mission", and rather than strike while the iron was hot, it would appear that Katy was in no rush to mess up her follow-up. Instead she mixed it up, getting her experimental on with 2012 EP "Danger", which seen her working with the likes of Iggy Azalea, Diplo and Wiley. Only one of the four tracks from "Danger" appear on "Little Red", the Don't-Mess-With-My-DJ kiss-off "Aaliyah" with the breathily voiced Jessie Ware, albeit cut down significantly from its original seven minute plus running time.
Then in July of last year, she released the stellar "What Love Is Made Of", produced by "On A Mission" regular Geeneus, which saw Katy forward her lyricism and sexy sound, but revert away from the experimental sound from the "Danger" EP. Oddly enough, despite its popularity and obvious greatness, it can be found nowhere on "Little Red".
The first official single was to be "5 AM", which turned out to be a perfect choice, as a spot-on microcosm of the album as a whole: nailing the whole depressed-disco vibe that "Little Red" seems to be aiming for, its perfect to both lose your mind to when out on the tiles, or cry by yourself to, listening at home alone.
The next single, current hit "Crying For No Reason", pushes that feeling out even further, and nails down the fact that "Little Red" seems to be about love, but three different types of love. Katy is either singing about being in love right now (and is happy about it), wanting to be in love right now (and strenuously yearning for it), or caught up in a bad love (and is quite sad about it).
But the set-list doesn't play it that way, jumping from ego boosting "Next Thing" to kick things off, working through the anyone-will-do message of "5AM", then on to the overly protective (or is she?) "Aaliyah", and so on. What does remain as a thorough through-line though is the peerless production mostly overseen by Geeneus, with some pop ups by the likes of The Invisible Men (Iggy Azalea, Conor Maynard, Sugababes) and Fraser T Smith (Adele, The Wanted, Rita Ora). All of the songs are contained within the sonic walls of some dark and murky synths, bar album closer "Still", which marches to the beat of its own drum line and sounds like it might've been more at home on a Jessie J album.
The album does come top heavy, with a lot of the best songs arriving all in a row right at the start, but elsewhere there are still some solid gems – the incredibly slinky-hipped come-on of "I Like You", the joy found in falling apart in the face of a new love as told in "Tumbling Down", the coming down from on high of "Sapphire Blue" – and while a lot of the songs can sound similar, it never sounds samey.
However, some of the songs are incredibly easy to sing along to, and just as easy to instantaneously forget – late in the game entries "Everything", "Play" and "Emotions" come to mind – but none of them are out and out, lets-skip-this duds. They just don't possess that heart-stopping moments of self-recognition that Katy sings about earlier on the album, putting into words, and sometimes silence, an exact feeling of longing, loving or leaving that we've probably all felt at some point.
Sadness has never sounded quite this sexy.