Back catalogue: Blues

Review: Danielle Nicole shares her debut album on Forty Below: The Love You Bleed. From its earliest recording sessions, Nicole knew this one would be different; for the first time, the whole twelve-track repertoire is about falling in love, not the fallout of it. Produced by Tony Braunagel (Taj Mahal, Eric Burdon, Robert Cray) and mixed by John Porter (B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Bryan Ferry), The Love You Bleed is an album-length sentimental ballad; full of love, loss, will, determination, and every residual ingredient of love. But that's not to say the album doesn't get sour with it; while lead single 'Make Love' is about consciously pushing past pain - choosing love, family, and community in life's difficult moments - 'How Did We Get To Goodbye' hits the listener quicker with its raw and twinging lyrics, documenting a soured love that bears no hero or villain, and asking how one might reach such a place of disrepair without even knowing it.