Celine Dion review, Courage: Lump-in-the-throat moments let down by vague and inauthentic songs

The Canadian singer has assembled a crack team including Sia, Sam Smith, Skylar Grey and Greg Kurstin, and pored through their offerings to find the songs that spoke to her the most

Celine Dion has released her first English-language album since the death of her husband and former manager, Rene Angelil, in 2016 (Press / Sony)

“This is from the heart,” sings Celine Dion on her new album Courage. It’s from someone’s heart at least. Dion didn’t write these songs herself; instead, she assembled a crack team including Sia, Sam Smith, Skylar Grey and Greg Kurstin, and pored through their offerings to find the songs that spoke to her the most. Some fit her like a bespoke suit; others are stiflingly generic.

This is the Canadian singer’s first English-language album since the death of her husband and former manager, Rene Angelil, in 2016. “He taught me everything,” she said in a recent interview (she meant it fairly literally; they met when Dion was 12, and their relationship turned romantic when she was 20). “I think I will probably grieve for the rest of my life.”

The most affecting moments on the record seem to face this loss head-on. On “For the Lover That I Lost”, those famous tight-throated vocals – endlessly parroted since 1997’s Titanic theme song “My Heart Will Go On” – are most evident. The title track, a lump-in-the-throat piano ballad, addresses “Courage” as if it’s a person who can save her from her pain.

Intriguingly, “Lovers Never Die” – a quasi-Bond theme, all big band, creaky voice and snatched breaths – could either be a sassy break-up song or something more desperate and literal: “Why’d you say goodbye if lovers never die?” she sings. “It’s obvious you’re full of it.”

Elsewhere, though, it all feels too vague and inauthentic to be affecting. “The Chase” sounds like post-country Taylor Swift, even borrowing the refrain from 2014’s “I Wish You Would” – only with neither the clarity nor the sincerity of that song. “Imperfections” sees her adopt the vocal affectations of a flash-in-the-pan popstar, while EDM-inflected opening track “Flying on My Own” is such an immediate, discombobulating misstep that I had to triple check I hadn’t pressed play on the wrong album.

Given that it is nearly an hour-long (or 70 minutes if you listen to the 20-song deluxe version), there was no need to add songs that feel so superfluous. Risk-taking is to be admired, of course, but only if for the right reasons. Here, those lurches towards top-40 pop feel not only misjudged but half-hearted.

Still, when Dion allows her voice to do the heavy lifting – on the Sia-penned “Lying Down”, it is as fibrous and precise as a bow across a taut string – Courage is a force to be reckoned with. It seems unlikely that more than a few of its tracks will jostle their way onto Dion’s setlist, given the decades of power ballads they have to compete with. But those that do will make their mark.