Review of Lazaretto by Jack White

Jack White’s second solo album, Lazaretto, defies the sophomore album curse, as the songs showcase the talent and range for which he is known, as well as the indie, garage, country-and-blues infused rock that is his oeuvre. Lazaretto was released on June 10, 2014 and set a vinyl sales record of 40,000 copies sold in its first week. The album is the follow-up to White’s first solo venture, Blunderbuss, the Grammy-nominated album that fans had longed for after experiencing his music with the bands The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather.

The vinyl version, carrying the label “Ultra LP”, includes a number of extras that the digital version does not, and although some may see the extras as gimmicky, White is known for being innovative and deeply invested in the art of music, which seems to be where these tricks come from.  Some of these special touches are firsts in record making. For example, it is the first record to have an “under label groove,” a song that is pressed under the label, which plays, albeit roughly, through the label. Additionally, the song “Just One Drink” offers listeners the choice of an acoustic or an electric version that then come together in the middle of the song. Lazaretto is also the first LP to include a hologram in the “dead wax” on the Side 1; the listener can see a hologram of an angel (to echo the album cover) when looking at the right angle. It is also the first record to have different finishes – Side 1 is shiny, and Side 2 has a matte finish – and is the first record to have at least one portion that plays in each of the three LP speeds (33 1/3, 45, and 78).  Also included are locked grooves on the outer edges of each side, and Side 1 starts on the inside and plays outward.

The digital track / iTunes listing (tracks 8 and 9 are reversed on the vinyl version):

(Vinyl Side 1)

1.    “Three Women”

2.    “Lazaretto”

3.    “Temporary Ground”

4.  “Would You Fight for My Love?”
5.  “High Ball Stepper”

(Vinyl Side 2)

6.     “Just One Drink”

7.  “Alone in My Home”
8.  “Entitlement”
9.  “That Black Bat Licorice”
10.   “I Think I Found the Culprit”
11.   “Want and Able”

White opens Lazaretto with “Three Women,” a track that boasts of having three women, “red, a blonde, and brunette,” an ego maneuver that gives a nod to the tradition of bragging in rap and hip-hop.  Aware that he is arrogant, the speaker notes that the listener might ask, “what gives me the right”; his answer is that “Well, these women must be getting something / ‘Cause they come see me every night.”

White continues with this theme of braggadocio in track two, “Lazaretto,” although the speaker boasts of mundane things such as having blue veins and being able to “dig ditches like the best of ’em” before climaxing with the boast that “I’m so Detroit, I make it rise from the ashes.”  This track sounds a fiddle section, blustering guitar licks, and even Atari noises, which create a collage of sound that highlights the pain of being isolated and the hope of a phoenix-like rebirth. This title track establishes the theme of isolation, as a “lazaretto” is a quarantine hospital.

“Temporary Ground,” the third track, comments on emotional paralysis, referencing the feeling of “Moving without motion / Screaming without sound.” The song may most specifically address artistic paralysis, as White writes, “The old explorers had it easy / They discovered nothing new / But returned on home with answers / Of sad existent clues.” True originality may be impossible for today’s artists, but the artistic process is one of piecing together, in one’s own way, old influences and past music, and White achieves this in Lazaretto.

Like any good bluesy album, Lazaretto features obligatory songs about unrequited love. In “Would You Fight for my Love?” (track 4), White shows the vulnerabilities of both sides of a relationship; while one is afraid of being hurt, the other needs to let the speaker in, emotionally. He sings, “But I can’t kiss you ’til you lift up your chin / You have to want to stop being alone.” Again, White places this speaker in the figurative lazaretto, as he is isolated from the one he wants the most, a problem that seems unsolvable as long as both parties have their guards up.

Track five, “High Ball Stepper” is somewhat of a classic/psychedelic rock instrumental with crunching guitar alternating with discordant, clunky piano solos and fiddle that sounds like high-pitched, half-howling vocals. White plays with distortion and feedback in this recording, which adds grit to the song rather than distracting the listener.

White returns to the subject of unrequired love in the sixth track, “Just One Drink.”  The Jack White twist in the lyrics comes when the speaker “drink[s] gasoline,” perhaps a more fitting beverage than whiskey for someone who agonizes over the love of someone who “stares at the ceiling” and seems to be “growing colder / as I get older and older.”  He is older and wiser, not experiencing unreturned love as a young, naïve infatuation, but someone who can sense the nuances of another’s moods and unspoken feelings.  The song puts the listener inside a roadhouse, with its fiddle and honky-tonk piano riffs, but this is White’s roadhouse, so the effect is a musical mélange that one might call “hard country,” as gripping guitar licks pervade the song as well.

“Alone in My Home,” the seventh track, directly echoes the dark tone that is the common thread of the album. White declares that he is “alone in [his] home” and is “becoming a ghost . . . / so nobody can know” him. The music of the song belies this theme, however, as its cheerful and sprightly piano-driven melody and happy-go-lucky rhythms are listener-friendly and engaging.  The tension between form and content makes the loneliness all the more compelling.

Track eight, “Entitlement,” is perhaps the most fun song lyrically, as White ponders (and plays with) the right to feel entitled. He asks, “In a time when everyone feels entitled / Why can’t I feel entitled, too?” and adds that “I can’t bring myself to take without penance / or atonement or sweat from my brow.” Ironically, these declarations suggest that the speaker does, in fact, feel entitled, as he complains that whenever he is doing as he pleases, someone “cuts [him] down” and he feels that he feels he’s “been cheated.” Entitlement occupies a great deal of discussion about American culture, but the irony that White brings forth suggests the hypocrisy of any generation or person protesting entitlement and wishing they “could feel entitled, too,” when most people in our culture do carry a sense of entitlement. He ends the song saying that “Not a one single person on God’s golden shore / Is entitled to one single thing / We don’t deserve a single damn thing.”  This dark turn suggests the maturity of White as a 38-year-old songwriter whose life experiences have brought him a wiser perspective.

White foregrounds gritty, raunchy guitar in track nine, “That Black Bat Licorice,” a song that again references the lazaretto theme of isolation. He sings, “I fantasize about the hospital / The army, asylum, confinement, in prison /Any place where there’s a time to clear my vision.”  The song is another in which the speaker boasts about himself; this time, he “play[s] dumb like Columbo,” the television character who other characters generally misunderstood and underestimated.  Additionally, one has to be intrigued by a songwriter who uses the word “avuncular” and references “Nietzsche, Freud, and Horace.”

“I Think I Found the Culprit,” track ten, offers the hard country feel with steel guitar, piano, and raw lead guitar. Thematically, the song approaches isolation differently; this time, the speaker is on the offensive, saying that “birds of a feather may lay together / but the uglier one is always under the gun.” Even as part of a couple, he has feelings of inferiority that create emotional estrangement.

Lazaretto closes with “Want and Able,” in which Want and Able are characters in a fable, until White ends it with the moral of the story: Want is desire, and the Able “is the means,” and although he wants to be with the one he wants, “that’s not possible, something simply will not let [him].” While this is quiet song is not a standout, it does close the album with the accepted despair brought on by loneliness and isolation.

Overall, the album comes in at just over 39 minutes but seems dense in its exploration of music and themes that reinforce each other in an intriguing mix of musical genres.  The common thread of isolation suggests that White is working through the emotional baggage of his very public divorce from Karen Elson. One can only expect that White will continue to push boundaries by fusing blues, country, rock, psychedelic rock into a garage indie sound that is his trademark. Ultimately, how the album is perceived may be less important than its presence on the continuum that is the work of one of the most original musicians working today.

Overall rating: 9/10

 

Tracey K. Parker is a college English instructor who earned her PhD from the University of Arkansas. The focus of her research is popular culture in literature. She also has a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and is an avid reader and published writer.

Review: Sia — 1000 Forms of Fear

1. Chandelier
2. Big Girls Cry
3. Burn the Pages
4. Eye of the Needle
5. Hostage
6. Straight for the Knife
7. Fair Game
8. Elastic Heart
9. Free the Animal
10. Fire Meet Gasoline
11. Cellophane
12. Dressed in Black

 

Sia is a songwriting powerhouse of addictive downtempo electro-pop. Since her 1997 Australian debut OnlySee, she’s written and co-written hit after hit with the likes of Flo Rida, Britney Spears, and Beyoncé, in addition to writing and recording her own music.

Sia is part of a sad-girl songwriting tradition that’s captivated audiences for decades if not centuries, a tradition whose sirens range from Dinah Washington to Marianne Faithfull to Fiona Apple and Lana Del Rey. As a culture, we have a fetish for female brokenness (to paraphrase author Stacey D’Erasmo), and it makes sense that we eat this kind of music up.

Just because melancholia can be fetishized doesn’t mean it’s not real and relatable. What we want—and what Sia seems to want in 1000 Forms of Fear—is to have agency in our own sadness.

The album’s anthemic opener, “Chandelier,” proclaims that “party girls don’t get hurt,” “I’m gonna live like tomorrow doesn’t exist,” and the titular “I’m gonna swing from the chandelier.” In the entire album, this song conveys the most instrumentality both in its lyrics and in the epic swell of its song structure. However, while the lyrics express agency, the melancholic instrumentals suggest plaintiveness rather than confidence.

The title of “Big Girls Cry” is a kiss-off to The Four Seasons’ lyric girlfriend of 1962 (or perhaps to Fergie’s 2006 insistence that “Big Girls Don’t Cry”). Sia adjusts the tone of the adage, insisting that “big girls cry when their hearts are breaking.” There is no shame, the song suggests, in allowing your emotions to perform themselves. Towards the song’s finale, Sia sings “I wake up” thirteen times in a row, a heartbreaking requiem for the dream life. Again, we’re confronted with the agency of sadness: in more casual terms, it’s her party and she’ll cry if she wants to.

“Burn the Pages” is the first indication that the album has the capacity to be upbeat. We’re thrown into a different state of being as soon as the drum machine kicks in—it’s almost flippant, the steady electro-pop rhythm teasing us into believing that it’s not all bad. Thematically, “Burn the Pages” is similar to “Chandelier”—“we’re letting go tonight,” “burn the pages let ‘em go”—extolling the cathartic possibilities of forgetting the past, but without “Chandelier”’s heartrending melody.

“Eye of the Needle” invites us to smile through the pain with another surging chorus. However, the melody is not as epic as the two opening tracks. The lyrics maintain a theme of weight, of being burdened by the past: “My bag’s heavy, Been filled by me, They weigh me down, Carry them round.” But in “Eye of the Needle,” Sia is not letting the weight go, she’s lamenting the lockbox of her internal organs (“Heart-Shaped Box,” anyone?): “you’re locked inside my heart, your melody’s an art.”

“Hostage” is another light touch on the album, giving listeners an emotional respite from melancholia. It definitely doesn’t make me want to kill myself.

The mournful piano assaults us again on “Straight for the Knife.” Sia repeats the line “swinging from the wreckage,” harkening back to the opening track—“I’m gonna swing from the chandelier.”

Though not one of the album’s more exciting tracks, “Fair Game” provides a straightforward interlude on an otherwise emotionally distraught album. However, the lyrics betray the rationale of the steady drumbeat and soothing strings: “don’t leave me, stay here and frighten me.” The matter-of-fact harmony never overtakes Sia’s swaying vocal melodies—and her vocal melodies are, after all, the reason she is loved.

“Elastic Heart” is a bit of a drag. The verse drags beneath the beat—which may be the point, as the chorus proclaims “I’ve got an elastic heart”—the music stretches like elastic. But even if this is intentional, it’s not particularly engaging. Co-written with The Weeknd and Diplo, the track was originally released as a single for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack. While critically acclaimed at the time of the single’s release (Spin called it a “bubbling ballad” and MuuMuse called it “gritty, gorgeous”), within the larger context of this album, it feels flat.

“Free the Animal” again tries to pull the record out of its deep depression. The lyrics suggest the joy of freedom in death, love as death, violent metaphors for romantic submission and happiness: “Blow me up or throw me down or cut my throat,” “Decapitate me!” Sia sings. Freedom in death, agency in sadness.

“Fire Meet Gasoline” is another track full of violent metaphors for love: “it’s dangerous to fall in love,” “burn with me tonight,” “we’re bristling with desire, the pleasure’s pain and fire.”

While a guitar floats hauntingly underneath Sia’s powerful voice, “Cellophane” still feels like a low point on an otherwise intense album. A guitar bends chords with a whammy bar in the background, and perhaps its ethereal tones are intended to make us feel lost, but maybe that’s the problem. Its atmospheric quality is too disconnected to be stimulating.

Every time I hear the music-box opening of “Dressed in Black,” I think King Harvest is about to start singing “Dancing in the Moonlight.” Then suddenly the mega-production of Sia’s chorus hits, and it feels like being in the middle of a gang war. “Dressed in Black” is an appropriately dramatic concluding track, its bridge a wordless, prolonged wail. The lyrics take the violence and romanticism of the preceding tracks into account, and conclude with a hopeful refrain: “I took to the night, I’d given into the fire…and then you crossed my path, you quelled my fears, you made me laugh.”

As we know from the success and ubiquity of Idina Menzel’s “Let it Go,” everybody wants to let things go. Let the past go, let ex-loves go, let former selves fall off and get lost in the wreckage of time (“swinging from the wreckage,” once again).

Taking initiative in tragedy is sometimes all we can hope for—and catharsis is its own initiative. An evocative wail, Sia’s voice expresses heartbreak, and the corresponding desire for catharsis, perfectly. In 1000 Forms of Fear, she struggles with demons both internal and external through forlorn melodies and deep-sinking hooks. If nothing else, swimming through this album allows its listeners to feel autonomy in sadness. The force of Sia’s voice combined with the pop sensibilities of her songwriting meld together into an album worthy of being heard while lying on the floor staring at the ceiling, grasping at agency in sadness through the very act of listening.

Rating: 8/10

 

Deirdre Coyle is a non-practicing mermaid living in New York City. Her work has appeared in theNewerYork, Fwriction : Review, Luna Luna Magazine, and elsewhere. She edits the music writing website Mixtape Methodology. You can find her overseeing the internet at deirdrecoyle.tumblr.com and@DeirdreKoala.

OK Go Upside Out (Paracadute) Review

Since their breakthrough in the early part of the last decade, Chicago’s OK Go has gained most of their popularity from their innovative and trippy music videos. The trend continues today, as the band’s video for its new single, “Writing’s on the Wall,” has blown up on You Tube since its release on June 17. The single is the highlight of OK Go’s four-song summer sampler EP, Upside Out, intended to hold fans over until its fourth full-length, Hungry Ghosts, is released in October.

And it’s that single that carries the EP, a song so strong it almost reduces whatever effect the other three were supposed to convey. A Gothy-tour de force that wouldn’t seem out of place on a play list next to the Cure or New Order, “Writing’s on the Wall,” tells the story of a couple whose time has passed, their break up near, and yet they still seem to give it one last shot, the singer seeking “some pleasure” in his lover’s eyes, “if it’s the last thing we do together.” It’s a wonderful song, but fans have to be scratching their heads about the format: why issue a four-song EP of songs from the forthcoming album, a record already completed? Why wait until fall if the album is ready to go now?

Upside Out finds the band in a bit of a mid-life crisis. Now 12 years removed from its debut album, 2002’s OK Go, the band is completely on its own, having cut ties with original label Capitol/EMI in 2010. This EP marks the first release of new, original music since then.

It would make sense then that the band would look back, and look to the 80s for source material – the 80s, of course, being the golden age of the music video, and OK Go being today’s standard bearer in that realm. The other three tracks compete in similar aural territory as “Writing’s on the Wall,” but with lesser results. The opener, “Turn up the Radio,” is probably the weakest of the four songs, with an a capella boy-band type chorus almost lifted from a Disney act like Big Time Rush, and mind-numbing lyrics like “I’ve got to lose myself tonight/I’ve got to let it all go tonight.” All that is wrapped up in a synth and bass groove that just doesn’t work.

“I Won’t Let You Down” sounds like a throwaway from Controversy-era Prince, while the closer, “The One Moment” may be the biggest puzzler, and also probably serves as the best snapshot of OK Go’s current meandering. “The One Moment” swells with big 80s guitars and shimmering production. “There’s nothing more profound than the certainty that all this will end,” Damian Kulash sings. The song soars like a U2-styled anthem, but falls off the rails in clichés. You’re expecting a big statement from this song, but it never quite comes.

In many ways, it sums up where OK Go is now: makers of great music videos, spotty albums, and looking for what to do next. Those treadmills in the 2006 Grammy-winning “Here it Goes Again” video probably never looked so symbolic.

Rating: 5/10

 

David Colodney studies poetry in the MFA program at Converse College. He has written for The Miami Herald and The Tampa Tribune, and his poetry has appeared in Shot Glass Journal and Egg. David lives in Boynton Beach, FL.

Review of David Gray’s Mutineers

David Gray’s brand-new 11-track album Mutineers is a historic release, but we won’t really know this until his next album appears, tentatively titled The Ghost of Babylon. That album will be entirely acoustic and will twist and press every early Gray influence into lyrics and music of exceptional lucidity, clarity, and dexterity. We’re waiting.

            Long-time David Gray fans have known Gray was haunted after the stunning White Ladder, now 16 years old. He wasn’t haunted by fame, although that was hard, and although he raised concerns when he wound down his touring in 2002-2005 because of exhaustion. No, Gray’s haunting had to do with style. What should a song sound like if you were a true singer-songwriter in 1998? It couldn’t sound like Dylan or Donovan. It couldn’t sound like Petty. It couldn’t sound like Paul Simon. It couldn’t sound like the Appalachian genius Jean Ritchie. It had to have major-minor modulations, synthesizers, loops. Techno-folk. That would be true to our roots, right? We all live in a techno-folk world, in which everything and nothing is real. So, perhaps unintentionally, “Babylon” became the anthem of that world in 1998.

            The rest has been bizarre. Shine, The Best of the Early Years  (1993-1998) came out in 2007, the same year as Gray’sGreatest Hits. It’s ballsy releasing a “greatest hits’ album less that a decade after your first great-hit album, but it’s even weirder using Year Nine as a full-scale retrospective year. It’s like saying, “Hi, I’m David Gray. I was fully formed in 1998. Let me give you two memoirs of my years up to and including that final year. Then you’ll know everything you need to know.”

            I don’t mean to ignore the 2005 Life in Slow Motion or the 2009 Draw the Line, but I do think the memory-lane trip is why Mutineers has the feel of a come-back album. A generation earlier, its direct comparison would have been to Jackson Browne’s 1993 I’m Alive. But what is Gray coming back from? There are no hideous stories, no suicides or heartwrenching breakups: interestingly, his private life remains both relatively quiet and, as far as any reasonably not-nosy person can tell, relatively happy. So—why the comeback?

Comebacks can be “from” or “to,” and Mutineers is a comeback to the music of Gray’s formative years. It’s just that it’s the prequel album.

            Yes, Mutineers is very good. Yes, if you liked White Ladder, there are a handful of songs among the eleven here that will please you. But it is, fundamentally, a strange album. The title and title track are both giveaways: there’s a mutiny in this collection, not just a song about a mutiny. Gray is the mutineer, only it’s the Gray who wants to sound different. And he’s generally cagey, which is why the mutiny may succeed. The kicky opening track, “Back in the World,” serves as Gray’s anthem that he’s back on track, which might work if it weren’t a direct echo of Tom Petty’s 1991 “Learning to Fly.” Bad? Not in the context of this album. Interesting. We’re hearing Gray’s musical influences throughout. Paul Simon’s 1986 Graceland and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, for example, haunt the ninth track, “The Incredible.” Jackson Browne is hardwired into the structure of the album. And Gray haunts himself in “Mutineers” and “Beautiful Agony”: if you want the old Gray, he’s right here. But what’s so fascinating about the other voices in this album is that they’re only once (with Petty) explicit. Everywhere else they’re tentative, as if Gray were just emerging from a dream when he wrote this. In other songs, of course, Gray is relying on loops that could come straight from GarageBand, so self-consciously techno are they. It’s a karmic twist of fate that Mutineers and Lana del Ray’s Ultraviolence came out virtually simultaneously, since del Ray is a true techno-pop genius and Gray—though a genius in other ways—is out of his league here.

            After the 1984 Born in the USA and the 1987 Tunnel of Love, The Boss had reached a kind of creative limit, but he hadn’t tapped out the heart behind the 1982 Nebraska. He revisited that album with his 1995 The Ghost of Tom Joad, an absolutely brilliant piece that sounds on the one hand as if it should just be played in a dark parlor and on the other hand as if it could lay out the road map for Springsteen all the way up to the 2014 American Beauty. The Ghost of Tom Joad is the kind of album Gray has to produce. He is a brilliant songwriter, trapped in a particular mode still but listening—you can hear how closely he’s listening for any exit in Mutineers. He’s so close. I am first in line for The Ghost of Babylon.

 

Rating: 7 out of 10.

 

Tom Simmons is an associate professor of English at the University of Iowa. His seven books are all still available on amazon under the name “Thomas Simmons,” although he hasn’t read any of them since 2012.  A singer-songwriter, he plays twice a month at one of his two favorite venues, The Mill in Iowa City (the other favorite venue, The Hideout in Chicago, hasn’t actually invited him yet).

The Sam Smith Review

Sam Smith is no stranger to the spotlight having won the “Critic’s Choice Award” at the BRIT Awards early this year, reaching the top 10 billboard charts with his single “Stay With Me” and taking the number one spot on the billboard with his single “Money on My Mind,” which all came before the release of his debut album In the Lonely Hour on the 26^th of May.  It release in the US this past Tuesday after being such a hit overseas.

This diverse album shows off a variety of styles that come with the different artists Smith had worked with in the writing process, ranging from synthpop to blues to influences of Motown.  A lot of the instrumentals display a minimalist style, usually consisting of simple, resonating, chord progressions with guitar and piano such as “Stay with Me,” “Not in That Way,” and “Good Things.”  This is an important part of Smith’s technique because he is a very lyrical writer and music that is lyrical generally should not have the chance to be out-shown or distracted by intense instrumentals.  Surprisingly, unlike many modern artists, he does not use drums on many songs, and the rest have very open simple beats (baring “Money on My Mind” and “Life Support” since the drum beat was likely written by Two Inch Punch, the produce of the song).

Sam is a fantastic singer, but his talent goes deeper than the surface.  He uses several different types of singing styles which are prevalent through many of the genres he takes influence from.  Many R&B artists sing with a smooth falsetto which, when mastered, can be a signature sound, like how Frank Ocean is known for his smooth, high vocals.  However, Sam Smith uses a nasal voice as well, which is exclusively how Cee Lo Green sings and is a dominant technique used by his musical idol, Amy Winehouse.  Nasal voices are commonly thought of as whiny and annoying but they have surprisingly been used for many years in genres stretching from gritty Texas blues to smooth jazz and R&B. 

The album opens up with “Money on My Mind,” which was an outlier to the album due to its heavily synthesized and complex instrumentals that clashes with the simple tracks that come after it.  This is largely due to the previously mentioned producer, Two Inch Punch, who wrote most of the instrumentals for this song.  The instrumentals were too overbearing for Sam’s voice to have to fight for attention.  The lyrics, however, are much more to the emotion style of Smith, following themes like “I do it for the love,” which reflects how he writes music because it is his passion, rather than for money, which juxtaposes many recent artist that write about the fame and glamour of being a musician.

The next track, “Good Thing,” puts Smith’s mindset from when he was writing this album into perspective by showing the longing he had for a lost love as well as the morbid thoughts that are packaged with heartbreak.  In the first line, smith says, “I had a dream I was mugged outside your house,” displaying both of these ideas very vividly.  This track features the guitar work of Francis White, with its consistent plucking that still stays true to the minimalist approach that Sam has been working for throughout the album.

The third song became a number one hit in the UK.  “Stay With Me” is the perfect example of Smith’s lyrical longing for the love that he lost, the resonant instrumentals, and fondness for soulful music.  If any one song off the album should be considered the essence of Smith, it is this song.  Good albums always revolve around a theme or an idea and has a song to represent this, and it seems like this album was written around this song.  Overall, the steady beat, lovely vocals, and momentous chorus are why this song has essentially become the face Sam Smith.

The fourth song, “Leave Your Lover” is most distinguishable for its intense lyrics where Smith begs his former love to come back to him and leave the person they are with, but he knows that will never happen.  Song five, “I’m Not the Only One,” shares this main idea, but with much more involving instrumentals and Smith shows off his skill for nasal singing.  After that, “I’ve Told You Now,” goes into the troubles he had in his previous relationships a bit.  Unfortunately, slow, resonant, piano chord progressions and a guitar that alternates strumming and picking the same progression can get repetitive, so this central part of the album gets a bit mundane.  There is little that makes these songs stand out amongst the rest of the album.  Even though they have well written lyrics, and the background does its job to support the lyrics, rather than outshine them, it makes them fairly insignificant to the whole album.

Similar to “Money on My Mind,” “Like I Can” is another odd ball track that does not seem to fit with the rest of the album.  The instrumentals are a lot more centered towards pop alternative, with a tight, very present drum beat and a steady palm muted guitar.  The lyrics still tie in with most of Sam’s other lyrics but the instrumentals do not fit his singing style, which needs the support from music.  This song simply has too much going on for Smith’s voice to excel in what it does best.  It is like how when an instrument solos, all the rhythm parts drop back.  Sam’s voice is constantly in a solo, and if the whole band is playing at full velocity then his solo loses its effect.

“Life Support,” song eight, may be the most iconic song on the album besides “Stay With Me.”  Unlike “Money on My Mind,” this song incorporates the synthpop style that Two Inch Punch is known for in a way that is not overbearing and out of place.  This lets it be a song that is radio applicable, as most of Sam’s music is not very catchy.  Not to say his music is not good, but most of his music is not something that is going to be anthems of summer.  “Life Support” and “Stay with Me” are both catchy while still under his usual style.

Nearing the end of the album, “Not in That Way” is the most unique song on the album while still sticking to the essence that Smith has been working so hard to cement into this album.  The only instrument in the song is a mellow, bluesy, guitar, which supports the minimalist style but it so different because Sam never ventures that far into the blues genre or has that style of guitar playing.  The lyrics reflect an issue that Sam has a lot, where he falls in love but is not loved in return.

The last song on the regular album is “Lay Me Down” is a showcase track for his voice.  He shifts in between a high, nasal, soulful voice and a deeper, growly, voice which he hasn’t used yet on the album.  Then he picks up the music a bit, giving it a pulse at the bridge.  It is one of the more upbeat songs on the album, and as the last song, it provides a solid ending so the listener leaves on a positive note.

The first bonus track is “Restart,” which features 80’s pop instrumentals that are low key enough to complement his voice.  It is also a good example of Smith’s superb falsetto skills, going higher than on any other track on the chorus.  Overall, the song is a refreshing change from the low key instrumentals that still remains mellow enough to be included in this collection of his work.

The next two songs, “Latch (acoustic)” and “La La La,” are songs that featured Smith but were released by other artists.  Smith takes his own approach to “Latch” by Disclosure, making it like the rest of his song, soft and acoustic, while still keeping the pop feel that the original had.  If you didn’t know better, you would assume it was his own song.  “La La La” by Naughty boy was kept the same as it was when he released it, but the instrumentals still match his calm style.

The last new song on the album, “Make It to Me,” is very similar to “Stay with Me” in its melody and instrumentals.  It is hard create any sort of diversity between songs when the only instruments used are piano and guitar.  He is hindered more in the way he uses these instruments to create ambience.  As in the center of the album, his songs start to blend together again.  There are distinguishing factors such as a guitar solo towards the end, but other than that, there is not much to make each song stand out from each other.

The next song is a version of “Stay with Me,” where Smith is accompanied by Mary J. Blige.  Oddly, they do not harmonize until the outro of the song.  Mary only does one verse and a couple background trills.  This is odd because Mary J. Blige is an R&B legend, and her talent severely outshines Sam Smith’s, and she does not sing very much throughout the song.  It was likely a publicity stunt to promote Smith rather than an actual artistic attempt for two wonderful singers to come together.

The last song on the deluxe album is the title track, “In the Lonely Hour.”  It is odd for an artist to have the song the album is named after as a deluxe album exclusive.  The song is closer to pop than R&B due to its upbeat chord progression.  It still follows Smith’s traditional style of open piano and no drums to progress the song.  The lyrics, again, reflect the general ideas of the album, the longing for lost love and the depression that comes with it.  This song best personifies his idea, which is likely why the album was named after it.

Overall, each of these songs could hold up well on their own.  Each song is beautiful in the way that it is written and performed.  However, Sam does not have a very diverse style, and, while the album itself is very diverse, many of the songs blend together due to them lacking any features that distinguish them from each other.  There are also a few songs out of the album that do not fit Smith’s style of writing instrumentals or his voice.  The album was setup strange in general, having one of the outlier songs first, and by having “In the Lonely Hour” as a bonus song in the deluxe edition instead of on the regular album.  Also, the album is diverse, but in the way that it strays too far from the majority if the album so that it distracts from the work as a whole. While Sam does have a variety of singing skills, he does not have the experience to utilize them to their full potential. 

For as much criticism as I give, I also must applaud his minimalist attitude which is so rare in music.  It takes a lot of skill to write music that is solely held up by vocal abilities and lyrics.  This is what makes Sam Smith as mystifying as a musician.  Most songs need instrumentals to support the vocals so if the lyrics or the vocals are not powerful enough to sustain the song, then people can still get hooked on the instrumentals.  However, the reason most artists do not do this is it is extremely difficult to pull off, and even though Smith did a wonderful job with this album, it is still far from a perfect album.

 

Rating: 7/10 

 

Christian Page is a student from New Mexico that has been studying music since he was nine years old.  He has made the state youth orchestra for both the upright bass and classical guitar.  He’s been studying poetry for the past year.