Izzy Bizu
A Moment of Madness
Release Date: Sep 2, 2016
Genre(s): R&B
Record label: Epic
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy A Moment of Madness from Amazon
Album Review: A Moment of Madness by Izzy Bizu
Fairly Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 7.5/10
Izzy Bizu’s debut full length, A Moment of Madness, comes three years on the heels of her breakout. That timespan would be the life-and-death cycle for thousands of pop artists, but Bizu has emerged with a truly first-rate modern throwback album, a collection of sentimental summery soul that recalls Amy Winehouse, albeit with fewer demons. “White Tiger”, the windswept, rapturous, at times incomprehensible lead single, is still first-rate fodder for practicing your falsetto on the highway, but it’s actually one of the weaker tracks here.
Based on rating 3/5
Nominated for the 2016 Brits Critics’ Choice and BBC Sound Of polls, Isobel Beardshaw – as Bizu was before launching her career, aged 16, in the group SoundGirl – is angling for the jazz/soul space inhabited by Amy Winehouse and Lianne La Havas. She is both helped and hindered by her unflagging sunniness: whether a song calls for the hiccupy sweetness that is her vocal calling card, or clawing intensity, it’s always underscored by her innate optimism. This makes for a very agreeable summer cocktail – aptly, it was originally scheduled for a June release – but comes up short if you prefer breeziness to be sometimes clouded by messier emotions.
Based on rating 3/5
Despite being in the BBC’s Sound of 2016 poll, there’s something quite mid-00s about 22-year-old Izzy Bizu and her jazz-inflected pop. There are moments on her debut album that recall Amy Winehouse’s Frank with the edges smoothed out (Lost Paradise in particular), while the retro stylings of Adam & Eve sounds like a more relaxed Duffy. Mad Behaviour’s broad, sweeping emotion, meanwhile, would have nestled perfectly on the Bridget Jones soundtrack.
Based on rating 3/5
Star-in-the-making Izzy Bizu officially arrives with debut LP, ‘A Moment of Madness’. The album opens with would-be single after would-be single, drawing on the genealogy of artists as disparate as Ella Fitzgerald, Amy Winehouse and early Lily Allen. It’s a head-spinning first half – an album that sounds perfectly relentless, even a little crazy.
'A Moment of Madness'
is available now