(XL)It’s all about the River Lea. Anyone wanting 25 to pack as much of a punch as 21 did – or,for that matter, 19, and Adeles debut – should skip past the wobbly-lower-lipped piano ballads and the one kiss-off,and head straight to River Lea, track seven of this most anticipated of post-hit comebacks. Nestled among all the oaky, or wistful songs in which Adele is elegantly conflicted about the past,is a gospel-tinged ode to a canalised east London rivulet. The River Lea is a Thames tributary full of stolen mopeds; a niche environmental group called admire The Lea try to stop it being poisoned by hasten-off from the road where impress Duggan got shot.
When push comes to shove, the impress of emotionally effective pop music is not melisma, or string sections,but finding the universals in specifics, in granular detail. It’s in Amy Winehouse’s “lickle carpet burns”, and in the “famous blue raincoat” that was “torn at the shoulder” (Leonard Cohen),it’s in Adele turning up out of the blue, uninvited, or it’s here too. Much roots music is written about rivers; here,Adele’s heart is the humble Lea Navigation – “a valley”, “so shallow, or artifical”,she sings.
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Source: theguardian.com