Ellie Goulding suffered an early backlash when her debut album was savaged by critics expecting a flighty ingenue on a Kate Bush kick. She didn’t blink. The truth is that Goulding has always regarded herself more as a pop star than a doe-eyed indie chanteuse. And as her career proceeded, she became increasingly comfortable as a mainstream star – a performer who’d much rather emulate Beyoncé than Bjork.
This is a philosophy she exuberantly lives up to on her third studio LP, a beat-slathered affair that shoots for the pop stratosphere. Working with proven hit-makers such as Max Martin and Greg Kurstin, the emphasis is on high-kicking pop moments, from the Rihanna-esque ‘Keep On Dancin’ to the Taylor Swift-esque ‘Army’ (Swift would surely approve of the song’s assertion that, when your friends have your back, you can achieve anything). Throughout, the pace rarely slows, though a whiff of introspection trickles between the edges on the Lorde-flavoured ‘Lost and Found’. Otherwise, it’s pedal to the floor and eyes fixed towards the horizon.
It is, in many ways, a triumph.