Joy Denalane

★★★★ Let Yourself Be Loved

LESEDI/MOTOWN. CD/DL/LP

Expanded reissue of 2020 LP from Germany’s Queen of Soul, her first for Motown.

On her second English-language album, Germany’s most influential soul star does more than just burnish the pop-oriented neo-soul that made her name, plunging into an effortless evocation of the classic Motown sound, rich with brass, strings and choirs. And while Berlin-born Denalane’s focus rarely wavers from matters of the heart, her songs, sympathetically produced by jazz pianist Roberto Di Gioia, reach much farther: fizzing over careening Hammonds, James Jamerson-style bass and Supremes coos (Wounded Love), summoning a jagged Aretha Franklin-like chant (I Gotta Know) or smoothing off pain-wracked Houston bluesman C.S. Armstrong’s rough edges (Be Here In The Morning). Five bonus tracks, including stringy standout The Show, sustain the momentum on a rousing affair that swoons, twinkles and pulses in all the right places.