1. "No Freedom" 3:16 2. "Girl Who Got Away" 3:23 3. "Let Us Move On" 4:10 4. "Blackbird" 4:09 5. "End of Night" 3:58 6. "Sitting On the Roof of the World" 3:18 7. "Love to Blame" 4:36 8. "Go Dreaming" 4:24 9. "Happy New Year" 3:29 10. "Loveless Hearts" 3:05 11. "Day Before We Went to War" 5:12 Dido revealed shortly after the release of Safe Trip Home that she had been in the studio recording new material, slated for inclusion on her fourth studio album. In July 2009, Dido revealed that the album would have an electronic approach, in an attempt to take it in a totally different direction to her previous albums. In September 2010, Dido unveiled her brand new single, "Everything to Lose", and the track was released via digital download, having previously appeared on the Sex and the City 2 soundtrack. In January 2011, Dido unveiled a second brand new track, "If I Rise", teaming up with producer A.R. Rahman for the track, for which an official music video was released. The opening track and lead single "No Freedom" opens with plaintive acoustic guitar and was penned with Rick Nowels, who previously wrote the major hit "White Flag" (2003). Guitars strum gently, the tempo is mid, and Dido wanly informs her man that their relationship can't flourish unless she's free to wander. On the title track, synthesizer chords puff gentle syncopations as Dido wishes she could be "the girl who got away", shifting and twirling in a slow dance through electronic caresses and the subtlest touches of strings. In the chrous, she sings, "I wanna move with the seasons/And go with the flow". Did finds guests to keep her current, like Kendrick Lamar, whose vociferous rap tears through the conciliatory "Let Us Move On", a spooked trip-hop song. The looping intro and muted snares on "Blackbird" are leveled off by her detached vocal and reassuringly familiar lyrics about the darker side of love ("Why do I bring you love, when all you give me back is pain?", she sings). While "End of Night", co-written by Greg Kurstin, has a chorus that echoes out through a flittering line of synth thrills, with Kurstin sending electropop keyboards percolating through the bitter kiss-off to a past lover. "Sitting on the Roof of the World" carried by folky guitar picking, reflects on sudden pop success and "not knowing how I got there or how to leave," insisting that she'd rather just "fit in" to everyday life. It offers a sobering moment of reflection, and a host of possible allusions to Dido's experiences within the music industry: "Everyone says I was lucky to have got there/ as not many can/ I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it now and then." "Love to Blame" features "finger-clicking brass" and it includes the line "there's time enough for new things yet," over "pleasingly wobbly low end", a smart instrumental section and all manner of odd bleeping effects. "Go Dreaming", which vows to rise above bullying, moves with a rubbery bassline pushing the track forward as it falls deeper into a well of electronica., while "Happy New Year" features descending bass line and trip-hop backbeat, with the singer missing an ex who may be absent or dead, and "Loveless Heart" is epitomised by a vast, sweeping scope, and talks about creeping up and under the defences we've put around our feelings, all in an effort to cope in a hectic, modern world. And in "Day Before We Went to War," with keyboards from Brian Eno, Dido sets personal moping aside to come up with a genuine enigma: an eerily pretty vision of mass destruction. Dido announced via her official website that the recording of the album had taken place in both London and California, and that some of the material had been recorded in her own hotel room, with a keyboard and a microphone. She also described the album as a "big, fun, electronic extravaganza". In an interview with the Daily Mail, Dido revealed that the album will feature production from Rollo Armstrong, Sister Bliss, Lester Mendez, A. R. Rahman, Rick Nowels, Greg Kurstin, Brian Eno and Jeff Bhasker, and that the album is on the verge of being completed

• published: 30 Dec 2013
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