<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" It&amp;#039;s just over two weeks until Leona Lewis&amp;#039;s long-awaited third studio album Glassheart hits stores on October 15. After being delayed by a year, we were just a little bit intrigued to hear what X Factor&amp;#039;s prized diva had been working on and, to our relief, we weren&amp;#039;t disappointed. &amp;#039;Trouble&amp;#039; Like &amp;#039;Bleeding Love&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;Happy&amp;#039; before it, this is Leona&amp;#039;s big, emotive power-ballad of an opener. It&amp;#039;s dark, heart-tugging and pure class. &amp;#039;Un Love Me&amp;#039; Light Snow Patrol-esque guitar plugs and a thudding bass beat serve as the backdrop for Leona&amp;#039;s intricate falsetto, which is allowed to take centre stage. The production is subtle, but the result is epic. &amp;#039;Lovebird&amp;#039; Weirdly, the intro has a &amp;#039;Bleeding Love&amp;#039; organ, before some &amp;#039;Better In Time&amp;#039; piano comes in. However, &amp;#039;Lovebird&amp;#039; develops into a mid-tempo ballad that centres around the catchy hook: &amp;quot;Your lovebird&amp;#039;s flying away/ And my heart&amp;#039;s been stuck in a cage/ I&amp;#039;ve gotta sing my/ Song so pretty, dum-dum dee-dee.&amp;quot; &amp;#039;Come Alive&amp;#039; This is Leona&amp;#039;s electronic serenade. Her voice towers above a crash of dubstep wobbles with break beats, before it pulsates into a techno finale. If this were a visual spectacle, it would be green lasers in a gothic castle.      &amp;#039;Fireflies&amp;#039; It begins with Leona singing over a rotating piano riff, before an orchestra of strings flourish while she chants: &amp;quot;Fire! It&amp;#039;s only fire!&amp;quot; It results in a hippie, gospel number that sits comfortably with the star&amp;#039;s previous offerings. &amp;#039;I To You&amp;#039; &amp;quot;You are love, you are sin/ You&amp;#039;ll alway be everything, everything/ To me,&amp;quot; Leona declares while backed by a band of swooping strings. On the first couple of listens this feels like an album track, but a very good one nonetheless. &amp;#039;Shake You Up&amp;#039; The cutest voice-over clip of Leona asking &amp;quot;Can you turn the music up a little bit please?&amp;quot; plays before Darkchild&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;80s pop gold ensues. It&amp;#039;s packed with groovy synths, an addictive hook and is the kind of mid-tempo hit we imagine a young Whitney would&amp;#039;ve recorded. &amp;#039;Stop The Clocks&amp;#039; An electronic-lite love song about spending an infinite amount of time with her beau, the track is a nice head-nodding ditty that could easily slip onto previous album Echo.      &amp;#039;Favourite Scar&amp;#039; An ear-pleasing piano riff that slightly resembles church bells is joined by one of the most direct tones and clearest diction we&amp;#039;ve heard from Leona. What&amp;#039;s more, it&amp;#039;s not the kind of Ryan Tedder collaboration we&amp;#039;ve come to expect from LeLe; hip-hop beats and attitude give it an almost Rihanna quality. &amp;#039;When It Hurts&amp;#039; A pleasant piano-led ballad with crashing beats and some light electric guitar riffs serve as a backdrop to Leona&amp;#039;s claims that &amp;quot;you love it when it hurts&amp;quot;. &amp;#039;Glassheart&amp;#039; DJ Frank E has sprinkled the title track with pumping club beats and chart-friendly dubstep breakdowns. It acts as a welcome change in pace during the latter stages of the record and definitely grows on repeated listens. &amp;#039;Fingerprint&amp;#039; Delicate piano twinkles underlie Leona&amp;#039;s rich lower register, before she is let loose with soaring falsetto over added crashing echoes and strings before the song&amp;#039;s end. The message centres around a loved one being irreplaceable (&amp;quot;No match, no match, no match for your fingerprint/ No substitute, no other you&amp;quot;). Verdict: After only a couple of spins, Glassheart already feels like Leona&amp;#039;s strongest collection to date. There are plenty of singles to be lifted here, so our only hope is that Syco doesn&amp;#039;t deliberate this time around when it comes to future cuts. Are you looking forward to Leona Lewis&amp;#039;s new album? Leave your comments in the box below: "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/news/a409004/leona-lewis-new-album-glassheart-first-listen/>