Album review: ’Emotional, sexual and spiritual liberation’ for Sam Smith on Gloria
With their inconsistent fourth album, British singer Sam Smith finally sounds like they’re having fun, but the result is a frustrating listen.
Album reviews for week of January 20, 2023:
POP
Gloria
Sam Smith
Universal
★★½
With their inconsistent fourth album, Gloria, singer Sam Smith finally sounds like they’re having fun. Smith is a frustrating artist: their preternatural voice can take the right song — like Latch, their breakthrough collaboration with Disclosure — to glorious heights. Yet they’ve spent most of their career playing it safe, hedging their bets on the stale, mawkish ballads that made them a household name a decade ago. And who could blame them for being risk-averse, when their tried and true formula is such a commercial winner? Their debut, In The Lonely Hour, won four Grammys and moved 4.4 million units in the US alone. For Smith, Gloria marks a “personal revolution” for their artistry, with this album, they’re striving for “emotional, sexual and spiritual liberation.” Ahead of its release, Smith, who once lived in crisp suits and button downs until coming out as non-binary in 2019, started donning slinky, sparkly bodysuits. Second single Unholy — a simmering, lusty, chart-topping Kim Petras collaboration — arrived with a darkly erotic music video that took cues from Bob Fosse and A Clockwork Orange.
Yet Gloria has short-changed the promise of Unholy: Smith is still burdened by those ballads, including album closer Who We Love, a schmaltzy, borderline unlistenable track featuring Ed Sheeran. The best moments are found on their loosest songs, like Gimme, a collaboration with Toronto singer Jessie Reyez and Jamaican rapper Koffee, that was born out of a 2am whisky drinking session in Jamaica (“Me and Jessie were running around absolutely wasted, like two girlfriends having a laugh,” Smith said of the track); the smouldering break-up plea Lose You, which boasts the most earworm-y chorus on the record; and the sassy Unholy. The crown jewel of an album that otherwise lacks focus is I’m Not Here to Make Friends, a devil-may-care song that crests swelling strings, is propelled by bubbling bass, and samples Ru Paul’s Can I Get An Amen monologue. The two interludes, one of which samples The Wizard of Oz, add nothing and feel clunky; the rest of it is sadly all too forgettable.
Geordie Gray
PSYCHEDELIC POP
Myself in the Way
Turnover
Run for Cover
Few could have predicted the trajectory of Turnover since its heavy, morose debut. The band emerged in emo’s early-2010s fourth wave and 2015’s Peripheral Vision became a cult-classic blend of dream-pop and shoegaze, while 2017’s Better Nature and 2019’s Altogether explored lush ambience and flourishes of electronica. For a band originally closer to Saves The Day than Slowdive, these Californians are a continually curious collective. Said intrigue continues into album No.5, which sends the band down a rabbit hole of lucid psychedelia with a carefree groove keeping the beat along the way. The title track sports a popping bassline and wah-wah guitar picking, while Mountains Made Of Clouds could pass for Tame Impala with its washed-out grooves and pondering lyricism. Combined with elements of new wave, disco and indie, this is the farthest the band has strayed from its origins — but it makes for one of its most interesting, engaging listens of its remarkable discography.
David James Young
ELECTRONIC
Panna Cotta
Winston Surfshirt
Sweat It Out / BMG
After 2017’s breakout album Sponge Cake, and 2019’s follow up Apple Crumble, Winston Surfshirt’s third album is similarly moreish. The six-piece has doubled down on its signature sound, blending the frontman’s raspy vocals with laid-back, jazzy beats, a brass section, and breezy R&B melodies. Notable for its hip-hop leanings, Panna Cotta’s tight production is elevated by its guest roster. Ramirez delivers a smooth rap on the ‘90s throwback All Of The Little Things, while Devin the Dude is playful on the slow jam Love You To Bits. Maybe I’m In Love With You is a standout for its goosebump-inducing horns, which bump alongside Winston and Talib Kweli’s spoken-word verses. On a local tip, Genesis Owusu is upbeat on the chugging and moody There’s Only One; Angus Stone delivers a suitably spaced-out vocal on the jazzy I Want You (To Be My Woman), while Kiwi Kimbra’s performance on the brilliant All I’m Saying adds a dash of soul. Grab a spoon; this is delicious.
Tim McNamara
Album reviews for week of January 13, 2023:
ROCK/POP
Turn The Car Around
Gaz Coombes
Hot Fruit Recordings/Virgin Music
Ex-Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes has swapped his famously Planet of the Apes-style facial fur for a trimmed beard and beret, but if the mutton chops are gone, the musical chops remain very much intact. Young Gaz was Caught by the Fuzz; today’s artist has served his sentence, married with children, and emerged as a much-beloved elder statesman of the Britpop age. He delivers a polished and reflective collection of shimmering guitar rock that the artist hopes “captures the ups and downs of modern life”. The final offering in a trilogy comprising Matador (2015) and World’s Strongest Man (2018) opens with the elegiac Overnight Trains, all plangent slides and longing. “Life’s not the same … the dam must hold,” he pleads, looking back in angst. Don’t Say It’s Over is instantly anthemic, showcasing the richer, rounded timbre age has added to his vocals, even if its title does echo sentiments made famous by a certain Finn-led antipodean powerhouse: “Here come those drunk tales from a friend of mine / But I don’t hear any more / No, I can’t stay awake / I’m too much in love / And now I can’t see straight …”
At times there’s a Thom Yorke-like wobble to his voice, and indeed there are traces of latter day Radiohead in the Eno-esque ambience and chameleon interlude of Feel Loop (Lizard Dream). It’s clear Gaz has gone about the getting of wisdom, even if he did spend chunks of 2022 reliving his carefree Supergrass heyday with a bunch of reunion gigs. Long Live the Strange is his rallying call to fellow misfits and weirdos, and chugs along with a Johnny Marr jangle and a nod to Moz. Apparently born after taking his daughters to a gig by a transgender singer and being transported on a tide of unity and good vibes, it’s a clear highlight of the album and rewards hitting repeat. Sonny the Strong takes a biographical turn, treading well-worn ground of young men and unjust wars. “Sonny the Fighter went over the top / He traded gloves for a rifle, at least seven to one …” It’s one part Jimmy Sharman’s Boxers meets two parts I Was Only 19, by way of The Boss; it draws you in and gouges away. It might even dampen an eye. Dance On goes unplugged and has a whiff of Bowie circa Hunky Dory. But it was the sweetly importuning title tune that stuck with me longest. “Turn the car around,” he yearns, but as we all know, you can’t go home again.
Jason Gagliardi
INDIE FOLK
Being Somewhere
Dan Mangan
Arts & Crafts
With not much more than his acoustic guitar and some heartfelt observations, Vancouver native Dan Mangan has secured a devoted audience that hangs on every word. What’s interesting about his seventh album, however, is not entirely what’s being said; it’s more how he’s saying it. The arrangements, co-created remotely by Mangan with producer Dan Brown, incorporate clattering beats and keyboard stabs (Fire Escape), as well as subtle effects work amid rollicking percussion loops (All Roads). It doesn’t all work – the reverb on Long After is overkill – but Mangan can’t be faulted for lack of ambition. Having not experimented like this since 2015’s underrated Club Meds, Being Somewhere is a refreshing calibration of the usual singer-songwriter palette. Smartly, it also knows when to strip back the bells and whistles: In Your Corner, a tribute to Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison, lays its feelings bare against a tasteful, refined backdrop to full emotional effect, on an album that ultimately thrives on its sense of belonging.
David James Young
FOLK/POP
Amateurs
Laura Jean
Chapter Music
Sydney’s Laura Jean Englert has moved freely across sparse folk, rock dirges and radiant synth-pop in the past, and her sixth album covers all of that ground in a single sitting. But the real revelation here is the addition of cascading strings arranged by Erkki Veltheim (Gurrumul, Archie Roach), which send these offbeat songs even further askew. New Zealand songwriters Aldous Harding and Marlon Williams sing harmonies on a few tracks – including Amateurs, a droll assessment of the financial worth of artistic expression. There and elsewhere, some of Englert’s sharper lyrics can take on a secondary role compared to the songs’ intricate moving parts. Yet opener Teenager Again unspools as brisk autobiography and the mercurial piano ballad Rock n Roll Holiday equally rewards poring over the words. Most striking of all is Too Much to Do, which mingles frisky strings with a disco beat and skyward falsetto. It’s yet another distinct facet to this uniquely prismatic Australian artist.
Doug Wallen