Scottish guest vocalist gets her own single…

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[7.50]

Iain Mew: I was rather surprised to find out, between Tinie Tempah, Magnetic Man and Wiley, just how many songs I’d already heard Emeli on. It’s a tribute to how well she filled each distinct role needed on those that I never really thought about it. With centre stage finally hers to command, she belts out “Heaven” in style, refusing to allow it to slink into the background even during its brooding verses, and making the final chorus truly spectacular as she rises above a cloudburst of strings. The way that the same beat suddenly begins to sound several times as urgent at that point is quite the neat trick too.
[8]

Jer Fairall: Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy” meets up with Neneh Cherry’s Homebrew to remind us of all that was awesome about the early 90s.  This girl’s vocals feel a bit more generic, to me, than either of the aforementioned, but with a loop that sinuous it’s pretty difficult to notice or care.
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Jonathan Bogart: Play the Amen break enough times, you just might get to heaven.
[7]

Ian Mathers: Man, it’s not until I hear that beat again that I realize just how much I’ve missed it. That it’s essentially tacked on to an otherwise straightforward (if well-executed) ballad just sweetens its impact, mainly by making the whole thing remind me a bit of early Massive Attack. There are much worse things to be reminded of.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Putting the Amen break at the start gives the impression that one’s come upon this song in medias remix. Takes a little getting used to, but with it a towering piano ballad becomes an aching, nervous mushroom cloud of a song. Her vocal is massive, but I particularly love her treatment of “then I’m gone,” as if she’s pulled on a shadow, set to vanish. As for “oh heaven,” it retains its poignancy whether it’s functioning as address or exclamation.
[10]

Edward Okulicz: It’s 1997. Olive’s “You’re Not Alone” is the last hurrah of a particular kind of dance music, but is an enormous smash and life is great. Give or take Sugababes’ underrated “Run For Cover,” it seemed like the charts didn’t get much more of this sort of dance-influenced and very British soul-pop. Finally, in 2011, someone has picked up that ball and run with it, and how! Sandé belts this out as if her life depended on it, and the grandeur of her vocal performance means touches like a choir, which could have been grossly overdoing it, sound just perfect. Keisha Buchanan is probably crying into her pillow this isn’t her debut single, and this wouldn’t shame Shara Nelson either. 
[10]

Katherine St Asaph: You can’t be Shara Nelson and be Sara Jay Hawley and use a glottal stop every five notes. It doesn’t work that way. You also can’t have both a crickety version of the Amen break and a gospel choir, or a brass sample this faded in any context, or expect people not to think of “Stronger” on your chorus (“then I’m gone” / “here I go”) but set yourself up as the opposite. Any two of these elements could make a fantastic song, but the more you add, the more they reduce each other.
[6]

Michaela Drapes: Over-thought and over-done, this track has some amazing moments somewhere around the time Sandé takes us to church, but hardly any of it can be heard over that unforgivably awful and hollow — not to mention poorly-mixed — break beat. (Imagine my shock to learn Mike Spencer was behind this travesty!) She deserves better with a voice like that; here’s hoping she gets it.
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