When music mixes the light with the darkness it can create a whole new reality. Corinne Bailey Rae, a wildly popular singer whose debut album in 2006 is still a favorite, had to allow tragedy into this new music when her husband, Scottish saxophonist Jason Rae, overdosed on methadone and alcohol. But what came of all that sadness has turned into an ability to turn loss into found, hardship into hope and allows the young woman to grow up without giving in. The Sea doesn't wallow in death by any means, but there is a definite sense of heartbreak in some of these songs that wasn't there on the last album. Luckily, she also uses her gorgeous voice on songs like "Paris Nights/New York Mornings" to open up the windows and let a breezy freshness into the sound. Not everything works, like "Keep on Diving" which allows ponderous lyrics like "Worlds will all end / and new worlds will begin / it's a thought so stark / we're at once determinant / yet so insignificant / spinning out in the velvet dark." There's just not many ways to sing those lines and keep from getting pulled down under the water fairly fast. Moments like that are infrequent, thankfully, and Corinne Bailey Rae never loses an incredibly soulful beauty to share a voice which shines in all the right places. She has never been part of the Amy Winehouse-Duffy-etc. rhythm & blues revival crew that is so popular in the U.K., having way too much subtlety to go that route. What this woman does is take elements of '70s black music, add a modern sensitivity to it and then filter it through a wide-screen view of the world. There isn't anyone like Corinne Bailey Rae right now. How could there be? Listening to this album promises us she is just getting started.