Mariah Carey – Here For It All
★★★★☆
A contradictory sort, Mariah Carey is both an ageless wonder who chooses not to acknowledge time, and an artist eager to remind us she’s been around forever. Here for It All, Carey’s 16th studio album and her first in seven years, marinades in the singer-songwriter’s sheer, unadulterated Mariah-ness.
We get mention of her lengthy history of Number Ones (“Taking off my coat, clearing my throat/ Certified diamonds like the songs I wrote,” on the amusing kiss-off “Type Dangerous”), her look-but-don’t-touch opulence (“I’m the D-I-V-A, that’s M-C,” she chants on kitschy opener “Mi”), and repeated evidence of her uncanny ability to entirely destroy a fool via a wordy bon mot: “Watcha gonna say when we go our separate ways and you see me outside with my million dollar bae? / ‘Please enjoy your Chick-fil-A…’”, she grins over the funky disco beat of “I Won’t Allow It”.
And while Carey herself should probably stop reading here… there’s a lovely grit to her vocal across Here for It All that only enhances the latest of those classic triumph-against-adversity ballads she’s so well known for. The spectacularly simmering title track – which climaxes in a three-minute jam full of heavenly vocal runs and production chaos – and the similarly pretty “Nothing Is Impossible” both find Carey backed up by little but elegant piano riffs and reverb. They actively utilise the battle-worn maturity of Carey’s voice today rather than pretend it’s not there – it’s a lesson the borderline unlistenable screech of the Seventies soul throwback “In Your Feelings” should have heeded.
Carey has stayed in her lane of glitzy, nicely overwrought if always immaculately well-written R&B for much of her career (there’s a reason her oft-teased but sadly still unreleased secret Nineties grunge album is so often begged for). Here for It All doesn’t exactly shake things up, but it’s a pretty, polished affair all the same, Carey sitting comfortably on top of her sonic throne and uninterested in relinquishing it any time soon. Adam White
Perrie – Perrie
★★★★☆
During an interview at Montreux Jazz Festival this summer, pop star JADE told me how she and her former Little Mix bandmates, Perrie Edwards and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, have their own WhatsApp group. It’s nice to imagine them coordinating their respective releases and cheering one another on: JADE dropped her long-awaited debut, That’s Showbiz Baby, earlier this month. Now it’s Perrie’s turn.
Where JADE succeeded best while emulating the maximalist splendour of her opening salvo, “Angel of My Dreams”, Perrie excels on songs that make the most of her voice. Often singled out as the most powerful singer of the group (though JADE has also proven herself as a spectacular vocalist), she hits some astonishing belts on “Sand Dancer”, a shimmering anthem that captures the spirit of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”. The grungey, infatuated “Bonnie and Clyde” recalls Alanis Morissette’s 1998 single “Uninvited” or Radiohead’s “Creep”, complete with an all-guns-blazing run to one extraordinary high note.
On the more pop-leaning tracks, there’s a conversational lilt to her delivery – the same that helped make Little Mix feel like best friends to millions of young fans – on the empowering “dump him, honey” anthem, “If He Wanted to He Would”. Many of these songs were co-written with Scottish singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt, whose confessional, intimate style bolsters Perrie’s relatable appeal.
Writing in his review of JADE, The Independent’s Adam White noted that her album couldn’t entirely match the “thrillingly nutty” highs of its greatest songs. Similarly, Perrie’s self-titled debut could do with more leaning into her own sense of playfulness and weird. There’s a fantastic pop record in here, it’s just concealed a little by (what I suspect is) industry-learnt self-consciousness. Roisin O’Connor
Sprints – All That is Over
★★★★☆
“Abandon all hope, hang the rope/ Don’t you recognise my face no more?” Sprints singer and guitarist Karla Chubb intones on “Abandon”, the opening track to All That Is Over.
Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Sign up now for a 30-day free trial. Terms apply.
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Sign up now for a 30-day free trial. Terms apply.
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
The bleak lyrics, delivered against sparse thwacks of the hi-hat and distant rumblings of the bass, sets the tone for the Irish band’s excellent second album. The Dublin-formed four-piece – now with Zac Stephenson in place of founding guitarist Colm O’Reilly – return with a newfound confidence and sense of abandon.
Take “To the Bone”, which flails like a fish in a net and goes from a poetic Patti Smith mutter (think “horses, horses, horses”) into something that gallops at full tilt, muscular and wild-eyed. “Need” is a witty, sharp-tongued maelstrom that encapsulates the near-deranged urgency of desire and turns it into a mocking riposte to misogynist trolls: “What would you like me to be?” Chubb demands. She’s dangerous and silky on “Something’s Gonna Happen”, rousing herself above much gnashing and wailing of guitars.
Many of these songs tussle with the jubilant status of the band – newly anointed off the back of their promising debut Letter to Self – against the apocalyptic landscape of the modern age. “I speak so therefore I understand,” Chubb sings on “Descartes”. It’s a track that sees her flip the philosopher’s first principle to take aim at the loudest, most ignorant voices in the room. Meanwhile, Sprints are smarter, and louder, than ever before. ROC
Source link
